Deep River

AL SO B Y S H U S AK U E NDO

The Final Martyrs

The Sea and Poison
Stained Glass Elegies
 SHUSAKU ENDO

Deep River
TRANSLATED BY VAN C. GESSEL

A N EW DIR ECTI O N S B O OK
Copyright© Shusaku Endo 1994
Translation Copyright© Van C. Gessel 1994

Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television

review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any infor­
mation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Pub­
lisher.

Manufactured in the United Sta tes of America

New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper
First published clothbound by New Directions in 1994
Published by arrangement with Peter Owen Publishers, London

library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

End6, Shiisaku, 1923-
[Dipu riba. English]
Deep river I Shusaku Endo; translated by Van C. Gessel.
p. ern.

ISBN 0-8112-1289-0
I. Gessel, Van C. II. Title
PL849.N4D5613 1995
895.6'35-dc20 94-38913
CIP

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

SECOND PRINTING
 CONTENTS

ONE The Case of Isobe 7

TWO The Informational Meeting 28

THREE The Case of Mitsuko 34

FOUR The Case of Numada 69

FIVE The Case of Kiguchi 84

SIX The City by the River 104

SEVEN Goddesses 127

EIGHT In Search of What Was Lost 148

NINE The River 169

TEN The Case of Otsu 182

ELEVEN Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs 190

TWELVE Rebirth 194

THIRTEEN He Hoth No Form Nor Comeliness 205

Deep River
 Deep river, Lord:
I want to cross over
into campground

Negro spiritual
 ONE

The Case of Isobe

Yaki imo-o. Yaki imo. Piping hot yaki imo-o.

Whenever Isobe reflected back on the moment when the doctor in­
formed him that his wife had incurable cancer, the voice of a street
vendor peddling roasted sweet potatoes below the window of the ex­
amination-room came back to his ears like a sneering mockery of his
dismay.
A man's dull, happy-go-lucky crooning voice.
Yaki imo-o-o. Yaki imo. Piping hot yaki imo-o-o.
This is the cancer right here. It has metastasized over here as well.'
The doctor's finger crawled slowly across the X-ray, almost in rhythm to
the potato vendor's voice. 'Surgery will be difficult, I'm afraid,' he ex­
plained in a monotone voice. We'll try chemotherapy and radiation, but . . .'
Isobe swallowed hard and asked, 'How much longer will she live?'
'Maybe three months.' The doctor averted his eyes. 'Four at best.'
'Will she be in much pain?'
'We can alleviate a certain amount of the physical pain with mor­
phine.'
The two men were silent for a few moments. Then Isobe asked,
'Would it be all right to use the Maruyama vaccine and some other
herbal medicines?'

7
 'Of course. Go ahead and use any folk remedies you want.'
The doctor's uncomplicated approval suggested that there was no
longer anything he could do for Isobe's wife.
Once again they lapsed into silence. Unable to bear it, Isobe rose to
his feet, and the doctor shifted back towards the X-ray, but the sicken­
ing creak of his revolving chair sounded to Isobe like a declaration of
his wife's impending death.
I must be . . . dreaming.
It still seemed unreal to him as he walked to the elevator. The idea
that his wife might actually die had never entered his thoughts. He
felt as though he were watching a movie when suddenly a completely
different film was projected on to the screen.
He peered vacantly at the sky, a gloomy colour that winter's evening.
He could still hear the voice of the potato vendor outside. Piping hot
yaki imo. He scanned his brain for the most convincing lie to tell his
wife. She would surely see through the workings of his mind with the
keen sensitivity of the afflicted. He sat in a chair beside the elevator
doors. Two nurses walked past, chatting cheerfully together. Though
they worked in a hospital, they were filled with a vigour and a youth­
fulness foreign to illness and sorrow.
He inhaled deeply and gripped the doorknob of her room tightly.
She was sleeping with one arm resting across her chest.
He sat down on the single stool and mulled over the lie he was
cooking up in his head. His wife languidly opened her eyes and, see­
ing her husband, smiled feebly.
'Did you talk to the doctor?'
'Um-hm.'
'What . . . did he say?'
'You're going to have to stay in the hospital for three or four months.
But he said you'd be a lot better after four months. So you've just got
to tough it out a bit longer.'
Aware of the clumsiness of his lie, he felt a faint layer of perspira-
tion beading on his forehead.
Then I'll be making your life difficult for another four months.'
'Don't talk nonsense. You're no trouble at all.'
She smiled; he had never spoken so gently to her before. It was a
smile all her own. When they were first married and Isobe came horne
from work exhausted from all the intricacies of human associations,
she had been there as he opened the door to welcome him with this
enfolding sort of smile.

.8
 'When you leave the hospital and have a chance to rest up and get
much better . . .' - Isobe compounded his lie to cover the guilt he felt
for his lifelong neglect of this woman - ' . . . we'll go to a hot springs
resort.'
'You needn't spend so much money on me. '
'You needn't'- the words reverberated with the same subtle loneli­
ness and sorrow as the voice of the potato vendor far off in the dis­
tance. Could it be that she knows everything?
Unexpectedly, as if muttering to herself, she announced, 'I've been
looking at that tree for some time now.'
As she gazed through the window of her room, her eyes were di­
rected far away towards a giant ginkgo tree that spread its many
branches as though in an embrace.
'How long do you think that tree has been alive?'
'Maybe two hundred years, I'd guess. I imagine it must be the old­
est tree around here.'
'The tree spoke. It said that life never ends.'
Even when she had been healthy, his wife had been in the habit
every day of speaking like a little girl to each of her pots of flowers as
she watered them on the veranda.
'Send me up some beautiful flowers.' 'Thank you for the beautiful
flowers.' She had learned to conduct such conversations from her flower­
loving mother, and she unashamedly continued the practice even after
they were married. But the striking up of a conversation with the an­
cient ginkgo tree must mean that she had instinctively discerned the
shadow veiling her own life.
'So now you're talking to trees?' He laughed at her to shield his
own uneasiness. Well, why not? We've got some sense now of what's
going to happen about your illness, so you can go ahead and have
your chats every day with the ginkgo.'
'That's right,' she answered lifelessly. Then, as if sensing her own
lack of enthusiasm, she stroked her haggard cheeks with her fingers.
A chime sounded. This signal announced the end of visiting hours.
Carrying a paper sack filled with her dirty clothes in his hand, he
rose from his chair.
'Well, I suppose I must be going.' He gave a deliberate yawn. Then,
extending one hand, he gripped his wife's hand in his. Never once
had he done anything so embarrassing before she entered the hospi­
tal. Like most Japanese husbands, he was ashamed to present any
outward display of his love to his wife. Her wrist had grown decidedly

9
thinner, providing evidence that death was subtly spreading through
her body. She responded with her characteristic smile and said,
'You're getting enough to eat, aren't you? Take your laundry over to
my mother's.'
'Right.'
He went out into the corridor. He felt as though chunks of lead had
been jammed into his chest.

In one comer of the room a television with the volume turned down
was broadcasting a vapid game show. Four young married couples
were each tossing enormous pairs of dice; if their rolls totalled ten,
they would win a three-day, two-night vacation to Hawaii.
Seated beside his sleeping wife, he peered absent-mindedly at the
screen. A couple who had rolled a ten joyfully clutched each other's
hands. Tiny scraps of confetti floated down from above their heads.
Somewhere in the room Isobe heard someone give a derisive laugh.
He had the feeling that 'someone' was purposely parading a happy
couple before him on the television just to intensify his agony.
Over many long years, Isobe had often been perplexed and con­
fused by his work and by the interplay of human relations, but the
situation in which he had now been placed was in a completely sepa­
rate realm from that string of daily setbacks. Within three or four
months, the wife sleeping before his eyes would most surely be dead.
It was an eventuality that a man like Isobe had never considered. His
heart felt heavy. He had no faith in any religion, but if there were any
gods or buddhas to be contacted, he wanted to cry out to them: 'Why
are you bringing this misery upon her? My wife's just an ordinary
woman of goodness and gentleness. Please save her. I beg you.'
At the nurses' station Tanaka, the head nurse whose face was fa­
miliar to Isobe, was writing something on a chart. She glanced up and
nodded towards him, her eyes brimming with compassion.
When he returned to his home in Ogikubo, his wife's mother, who
lived nearby, was just putting his dinner into the refrigerator. He re­
ported on his wife's condition, but he left the doctor's diagnosis nebu­
lous. He lost courage when he reflected on the shock his mother-in-law
would receive if he told her the truth.
'Dad'll be home early today, so I'd better get back.'
'Thanks for everything.'
'With her in the hospital, this house suddenly seems very large.'
'That's because she's so cheerful by nature.' Inwardly, he repeated

-10
his appeal to the gods. She's plain, but she's a good woman. Please, you
must save her.
When his mother-in-law left, he was struck, just as she had ob­
served, by the emptiness of his house, an emptiness he had not noticed
before. It was because his wife wasn't there. Until a month earlier, it
had seemed only natural to Isobe that his wife would be at home, and
he had neither been particularly conscious of her presence nor even
initiated a conversation with her unless there was something he wanted.
They had not been able to have children of their own, so they had
tried adopting a girl. She had not taken to them, and ultima tely they
felt as though they had failed. If there was some blame to be placed,
it was on the taciturn Isobe, who found it difficult to speak kindly to
his wife and daughter and to express his own feelings. His wife was
the one who led conversations at the dinner-table, with his responses
limited to an occasional 'Uh-huh' or 'That's fine.' Often she would
sigh at him and complain, 'Can't you talk to her a little more?'
He began actually talking to his wife after she entered the hospital.

The doctor's prognosis was cruelly precise: less than a month after
Isobe was given the news, she developed a fever and began to com­
plain of internal pain. Still she struggled to smile, so as not to cause
her husband any anguish, but her hair began to fall out after the
radiation treatments, and she moaned faintly, evidently stricken with
fierce, lightning-like pain whenever she shifted her body even slightly.
Thanks to the chemotherapy, she immediately vomited up anything
she ate.
Tormented to see her like this, Isobe entreated the doctor, 'Could
you possibly give her morphine?'
'Yes, but if we don't time its use properly, it will simply hasten her
demise.'
The doctor had contradicted his earlier comment. The policy at Japa­
nese hospitals, where the goal of practising medicine is to prolong
human life, is to draw out the patient's life for every possible day.
Although Isobe realized that in the long run his wife could not be
saved by such treatment, in his heart lurked the wish for her to live
one extra hour, even one extra minute. Yet, when he thought of Keiko
gritting her teeth to stop showing her pain, concerned no doubt for the
effect her cries would have on her husband, he felt like saying, 'No
more! Don't fight it any more.'
One day on his way home from work, when he opened the door to

1 1
her room for the hundredth time, he was surprised to find her smiling
at him.
'You wouldn't believe how relaxed I feel today. They gave me some
special IV,' she reported in a spirited voice. 'It's like a miracle. I won­
der wha t kind of medicine it is?'
'Maybe some new antibiotic.' So they've started the morphine.
'If this medicine works, I'll be able to leave the hospital sooner.
And we can't afford this private room.'
'Don't worry about it. We can handle a month or two of private
room bills.'
He had, however, already used up the money she had put into sav­
ings so they could take a trip to Spain and Portugal after his retire­
ment. She considered this trip a substitute for the honeymoon they
had not been able to take, and she had spread open a map and marked
the unseen cities of Lisbon and Coimbra with red circles, which stood
out like imprints of happiness. She had even asked Isobe, who had
spent nearly two years at his company's American office, to teach her
some simple English conversation phrases.

Not telling the truth

again today I went out
of the hospital

With a shudder, I
open my eyes and think of
life without my wife

Recently Isobe had written this wretched doggerel in his appoint­

ment book while waiting on a platform bench for his train to arrive.
Since he didn't bet on horses or play mah-jong, his only meagre pleasures
were drinking sake, composing miserable haiku, and playing go. He
had never shown his poems to his wife. He was the kind of man who
was embarrassed to reveal his own feelings openly in words or on his
face, the kind of husband who hoped for a relationship in which his
wife would understand him even if he did not u tter a word.

So slender it is,
this outstretched arm of hers with
its protruding veins

12
 One Saturday evening when he arrived at the hospital earlier than
usual after work, he discovered in his wife's room a woman with a
broad forehead and large-pupilled eyes wearing a triangular cap on
her head.
'She's a volunteer.' Cheerful because the morphine took away her
pain, his wife Keiko introduced the woman to her husband. 'This is
the first time I've seen a volunteer since I carne here.'
'Is that so?' the woman asked as she stared at Isobe. 'The head
nurse, Miss Tanaka, asked me to look after your wife. My name is
Naruse.'
'Are you . . . a housewife?'
'No, I was divorced when I was young. During the week I do some­
thing that passes for a real job, but on Saturday afternoons I'm part of
the volunteer group here at the hospital.'
Isobe nodded as though interested in her explanation, but inwardly
he was troubled. He was afraid that this amateur helper might inad­
vertently let slip to his wife the true name of her affliction.
'She knows all abou t how to take care of a patient. She was just
helping me eat my supper.'
'Well, we'll put our trust in you.' Isobe bowed his head, putting
emphasis on the word 'trust'.
'I'll leave you alone, then, now that your husband's here.'
Naruse Mitsuko nodded her head politely, picked up the tray with
half the food still remaining, and left the room. From the way she
spoke and the quiet way she closed the door, Isobe decided that she
was a volunteer he could rely upon.
'She's good, isn' t she?' Keiko sounded as though finding this woman
had been her own doing. 'She graduated from the same university as
·

you.'
Why do you suppose someone like her . . . does volunteer work here?'
'Because she's someone like her, silly. She knows all sorts of things.'
With a woman's frank curiosity, she mused, 'I wonder why she got
divorced?'
'How would I know? You shouldn't nose around in other people's
business.' His voice sounded angry; inside, he was worried tha t the
easy familiarity that can develop between women might prompt this
volunteer to divulge Keiko's illness to her.

'The strangest thing happened.' Keiko seemed as though she were

peering far off into the distance as she spoke to her husband. 'I fell

13
asleep a fter my IV, and in my dreams I saw the living-room in our
house, and I was looking at you from behind. After you'd boiled
some water in the kitchen, you started getting ready for bed without
turning off the gas to the stove. I yelled as loud as I could to warn
you that if you left the teapot there and all the water boiled away, you
could start a fire. . . . But you had this indifferent look on your face. I
shouted to you over and over again. But then you turned out the bed­
room light. . . .'
Isobe stared fixedly at the opening and closing of his wife's lips as
she spoke. Everything she described in her dream had actually hap­
pened. The night before, after he turned out the bedroom light and fell
asleep, he awoke to an indescribable apprehension in his heart. At
that moment, he realized that he had left the gas on in the kitchen,
and he sprang to his feet. When he scrambled into the kitchen, the
teapot was glowing as red as a cherry.
'Really?'
'Yes. Why?'
Keiko listened with a nervous face as he explained what he had
done. Then, with the look of one who has just awakened from a dream,
she said, 'Well, perhaps I'm still good for something. They say that
dreams can come true, and I suppose sometimes they do.'
Isobe worried that his wife talking to trees and having odd dreams
might be an indication of how close death was approaching. When he
was a child, his grandmother had told him that people who were about
to die could see things that healthy people couldn't.
Her pain was abated with the morphine, but the debilitation of her
body was so pronounced that Isobe recognized it even though he came
to see her every day. But the morphine left her mind alert.
'Miss Naruse told me something interesting today. She said that
scholars have acknowledged that dreams have various profound mean­
ings. What did she say it was called? Oh, dream therapy. She told me
that through my dreams I could understand what was in my uncon­
scious mind. But that's all she'd tell me.'
Listening to her story, Isobe for some reason felt uneasy about the
large-eyed Miss Naruse. There was something about her that made it
seem as though she could see through to the very workings of Keiko's
mind.
Once the vitality that the morphine provided suddenly drained away,
like the evening glow on a summer's day that flares up for just an
instant before darkness takes over, Keiko had to wear an oxygen mask

- 14
constantly, and her breathing was agitated as she slept. One Saturday
evening when he noiselessly opened the door, she lay with her eyes
clamped painfully shut, an intravenous needle stabbing into her arm,
while beside her the woman volunteer was rubbing her legs. When
Keiko heard her husband come in she opened her eyes lethargically,
but she no longer flashed her trade-mark smile. In a wispy voice she
mumbled, 'I feel like I'm falling . . . to the bottom of the earth.' Then
she went back to sleep. There was no change in the volunteer's expres­
sion as she looked at the patient. He felt as though that icy gaze were
saying 'There's no more hope', and an inexpressible pain seized him.
'How has she been today?'
'She was able to talk a little.'
'She doesn't know what's happening.' He lowered his voice to a
whisper. 'I haven't said anything to her. I'd appreciate your co-opera­
tion.'
'I understand. But . . . ' Mitsuko said softly, 'your wife may already
know. Patients with terminal cancer are far more aware of their ap­
proaching death than people around them imagine.'
'She's never said a word to suggest anything like that,' he pro­
tested, making sure tha t his wife was still sound asleep.
Mitsuko's voice continued to run cold as she said, 'That's just out of
her consideration for you.'
'You have some cruel things to say, don't you?'
'I'm sorry. But, as a volunteer, I've seen many similar cases.'
What did my wife talk to you about today?'
'She was worried about how helpless you'd be without her.'
'She was?'
'And she said something peculiar. She said her conscious mind had
slipped out of her body and was looking down from the ceiling at the
shell of her body lying on the bed.'
'Do you think that's the side-effects of her medicine?'
'It could be. But once in a while patients in the final stages of their
cancer have the same experience. None of the doctors or nurses believe
them, of course.'
This phenomenon struck Isobe as a portent of his wife's death. Again
today the sky was dark grey beyond the window, and he could hear
the dull-witted voice of the potato vendor outside the hospi tal. The
pedlar could have no idea what impact his torpid voice had on those
who heard it. A scene from Lisbon, with pots of thriving flowers in
every window. The shores of the sea at Nazareth, with women in black

15
robes mending their nets on the pure-white beach. If his wife were
going to see apparitions, he would rather she saw these kinds of scenes
instead of her own corporeal shell stretched out upon the bed.
This incident of the mind fleeing the body was, after all, an omen
that the end was near.
The doctor called him over to the nurses' station. 'I think we've got
another four or five days. If you're going to send for any relatives . . . '
'Four or five days?'
Behind his glasses, the doctor lowered his eyes. The pocket of his
soiled examina tion coat was crammed with ballpoint pens, thermo­
meters and the like. At times such as this, he had no desire to see the
expressions on the faces of his patients' families.
'So soon?' Isobe spoke the meaningless words with lingering hope,
though he had not forgotten for a single day that the doctor had ini­
tially predicted she would live only three or four months.
'Will she remain conscious until the end?'
'That's hard to say. Very likely she'll go into a coma two or three
days beforehand .'
'She won't die in pain, will she?'
'We'll do everything we can to relieve her suffering.'
Finally that day had come pressing in before his eyes. 'Desolation'
would not be the proper word to describe his feelings now; it was
more the sense of emptiness he imagined he might feel standing all
alone on the surface of the moon. Bearing up against that hollow feel­
ing, he quietly gripped the d_oorknob of her room. Nurse Tanaka and
a young assistant were constructing an oxygen tent.
'Ah, your husband's here.' The veteran nurse spoke encouragingly.
'Darling.' With a flutter of her hand she summoned her husband to
her bedside, then pointed to the table next to her pillow. 'When it's
over . . . look through the diary in here.'
'I will.'
The two nurses knew enough to leave the room, after which Keiko
said, 'Thank you for these many years . . . . '
'Don't talk nonsense.' Isobe turned his head away. 'You silly woman,
you talk as though you'r� near death or something.'
'I'm sorry. But I know what's happening. By tomorrow, I may not
be able to talk at all.'
There was no more time for shame or embarrassment. Tomorrow
the partner he had lived with for thirty-five years could well be leav­
ing this world.

. 16
 He sat in the chair next to her bed and stared silently at his wife's
face. He was weary, but a far deeper exhaustion clouded her face.
Sluggishly she opened her eyes a crack and looked at her husband,
but it seemed even that caused her pain, and once again she closed
them.
Nurse Tanaka came back into the room and placed a new oxygen
mask on her face.
'If this bothers you, you can take it off. But this one will be more
comfortable for you.'
Keiko did not respond. With her eyes still closed, she continued to
breathe, her shoulders heaving.
She slipped into a coma that night. From time to time she would
mutter something deliriously. Isobe could do nothing but sit beside
her and clutch her hand . Doctors and nurses in endless succession
tested her blood pressure, gave her injections, checked her pulse. Isobe
contacted her father, mother and younger brother who all lived in
Tokyo.
As he hung up the pay-phone and was about to return to her room,
a young nurse came running down the hallway towards him. 'Sir,
she's calling you. Please hurry.'
When he entered the room, Nurse Tanaka opened the oxygen tent
and said in an agitated voice, 'She's trying to say something. Put
your ear right up to her mouth.'
'It's me. Me! Do you understand?'
Isobe placed his ear directly by her mouth. In a gasping voice, she
was desperately struggling to say something in fits and starts.
'I . . . I know for sure . . . I'll be reborn somewhere in this world.
Look for me . . . find me . . . promise . . . promise!'
She spoke the words 'promise . . . promise!' more forcefully than the
others, as though these final words were her last desperate plea.

Several days passed as if in a dream. Despite his every effort, he

could not convince himself that his wife was actually dead. Over and
over again he told himself, She's gone off on a trip with a friend, she'll
be back soon. Three days later, when the swarm of black automobiles
came to a halt in front of the crematorium near the Koshu highway
and the clusters of survivors were swallowed into the building as
though on a conveyor belt, and even when they sat waiting their turn
for the ceremonies, the same sorts of thoughts filled Isobe's mind.
Through the window of the waiting-room he could see the plume of

17
smoke rising from the crematorium's tall chimney, but it reminded
him of nothing more than the overcast skies he had often seen from
her hospital window. She's off on a trip, he mumbled in the general
direction of the smoke. When she gets back from her trip, life will all
return to nonnal. Disconnected from his thoughts, his lips formed words
of appreciation to speak to the assembled mourners.
An a ttendant came in to announce the beginning of the cremation.
Before long, a middle-aged man dressed in a uniform and cap stood
in front of Isobe and flipped the switch to the furnace, and a sound
like the bullet train rumbling across a steel bridge filled the room.
What is happening? What are they doing? Even at this point the dumb­
founded Isobe had no idea. 'Now if you'll please use these chopsticks
to collect the bones and place them in this urn,' the uniformed man
declared without expression, sliding out a large black box. Isobe could
not bring himself to believe that the strangely pallid fragments of
bone strewn in the box were those of his wife. What the hell is this?
What are we doing? He mumbled to himself as he stood beside his
weeping mother-in-law and several other female relatives. This isn't
her.
The funeral urn was wrapped in a white cloth and, holding it in his
arms, Isobe returned to his house with the family members and the
Buddhist priest. When he entered the house, the furniture they had sat
on together, and the favourite household items she had often used,
were arranged just where she had placed them when she was alive.
The women in the family began serving plates and bowls of food and
glasses of beer to the guests.
'After we hold the seventh-day memorial service,' one relative, the
foam from his beer still frothing on his face, observed, 'the next will
be the forty-ninth day observance, won't it?' Since this fellow had
taken charge of all the arrangements for the funeral, his mind seemed
to be full of nothing but the remaining obligations.
'What day next month will the forty-ninth day fall on?'
'It's a Wednesday.'
'I know you're all very busy, so please leave everything to me.
We'll handle it with the utmost circumspection.'
'But, Your Reverence/ another man questioned the priest, 'why is it
that this gathering is held on the forty-ninth day in Buddhism?'
'Let me explain.' Fingering the rosary beads on his lap, the bald­
headed priest had a look of pride as he offered his response. 'In Bud­
dhist teachings, when an individual dies, their spirit goes into a state

- 18
of limbo. Limbo means that they have not yet been reincarnated, and
they wander uneasily about this world of men. Then, after seven days,
they slip into the conjoined bodies of a man and a woman and are
reborn as a new existence. That is why we have the observance on the
seventh day after death.'
'I see.' Hearing this explanation for the first time, the men sat star­
ing at the priest, clutching their glasses of beer.
'So it's every seven days, is it?'
'That's right. And no matter how slow the person is in getting rein­
carnated, by the forty-ninth day they invariably attain new life by
being reborn as someone's child . . . . '
'Hmm.' As one, the group emitted what was either a sigh of curios­
ity or of relief, but not one of them really believed anything the priest
was saying.
'I see. So that's why at Buddhist temples after a funeral they're
always talking about the forty-ninth day this, the forty-ninth day that,'
one of the group volunteered, but inwardly they all regarded this as a
simple money-making measure on the part of the temples.
His wife's delirious ravings echoed in Isobe's ears: 'I know for sure . . .
I'll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for me . . . find me . . . . '

As Isobe sat lost in recollection of those words, the gentle priest

came up to him, and with a bow of his head said, 'I have finished my
duties, so I'll be leaving now.'
When everyone had finally gone, Isobe opened up the two travel­
ling bags he had brought back from the hospital. They contained the
items his wife had used while she was there. A dressing-gown, a
neglige, underwear, a towel, her toiletries, a clock - and included
among all these, the diary she had written in the hospital. It was a
small notebook covered in black leather that M. Bank handed out for
publicity to all its customers at the year's end . He felt a clutching in
his chest as he opened the first page.

Your kimonos and winter clothing: in the paulownia wood box

marked A in the closet.
Your spring and autumn kimonos, summer wear, and formal
kimonos: in the paulownia box marked B.
Be sure to brush your kimonos and have them cleaned a t the
end of each season.
Your sweaters and cardigans are in paulownia box C.
I've explained all of this to my mother.

19
 Our savings passbook and personal seal are in a box at the
bank, along with our stock certificates and real estate title papers.
If you have any questions, talk to the branch manager, Mr
Inoue, at M. Bank, or to our attorney, Mr Sugimoto.

His eyes clouded over, and Isobe hesitated turning the page. On
every page his wife had noted down, one after the other, all the daily
instructions her husband would need in order to av<;>id problems after
she was dead. Be sure to turn off the gas before you go to bed; here's how
to clean the bath-tub these were all tasks that he had left to his wife
-

until now. She had explained each of them in simple detail.

'Do you think I'll be able to do this?' he bellowed towards the me­
morial tablet and photograph of his wife hanging in the living-room.
'You can't just leave the house like this . . . . Corne back . . . at once!'
Some twenty days before she died, she had made the following
notation, almost like a memo to herself rather than a journal entry:

22 January
Cloudy. Another IV today. The veins in my arms have pretty
much collapsed by now, and my arms are covered with blackish
bruises from the haemorrhaging. I've been talking to the ginkgo
tree outside my window.
'Mr Ginkgo, I'll be dying soon. I envy you. You've been alive
for over two hundred years now.'
'I wither too, when winter comes. Then in spring, I come back
to life.'
'But what about people?'
'People are just like us. Though you die once, you return to life
again.'
'Return to life? But how?'
'Eventually you'll understand,' the tree replied.
25 Jan uary
When I think of my clumsy husband, who won't have anyone
to look after him when I'm gone . . . I'm filled with concern.
27 Jan uary ,
In a lot of pain until evening. I can handle the physical pain
with the medication, but my mind . . . my mind grows weary from
the fear of death.
30 January
Miss Naruse carne as a volunteer today. She always seems so

'20
 serene and so much in control that I end up telling her all the
worries and secrets I can't convey to my husband.
'I realize that I'm probably going to die. I haven't said
anything to my husband, but . . . '
She had the good grace to smile in response. It was just like her
not to offer any empty words of denial or consolation.
'Miss Naruse, do you believe in rebirth?'
'Rebirth?'
'Do you think it's true that, once a person dies, she can be born
again into this world?'
She stared straight at me for a moment, but she did not nod her
head.
'I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm going to be reborn and
meet up with my husband again.'
Miss Naruse turned her eyes towards the window. To the scene
I had grown accustomed to seeing day after day after day. The
giant ginkgo tree.
'I have no idea,' Miss Naruse muttered. She picked up my
dinner-tray and left the room. From behind, she looked hard and
cold.

The empty days continued in procession. He stayed late at work,

delaying the time of his return home, in an effort to fill the hollow
cavity in his heart. He managed somehow to bandage his melancholy
by taking his late-working chums at the office ou t for dinner and
drinks. But it pained him to have to return home and look at the items
his wife had used. Her slippers, her teacup, her chopsticks, the family
budget book, her brief scribblings in the phone book. Every time his
eyes rested on these mementoes, a pain like a stab from an awl punc­
tured his chest.
Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night. There in
the darkness he would try to persuade himself that his wife was sleeping
in the next bed .
'Hey. Hey!' he would call out. 'Hey, are you asleep?'
The only response, finally, was black silence, black emptiness, black
loneliness.
'When are you coming back from your trip? How long do you plan
to desert this house?'
In the darkness he would close his eyes and project images of his
wife's face on to the backs of his eyelids. Where are you, you idiot?

21
What are you doing, abandoning your husband like this . . ?.

'I know for sure . . . I'll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for
me . . . find me.' Her final ravings continued to ring in the depths of
his ears, like a distinct echo.
But Isobe could not bring himself to believe that something so out­
landish could happen. Because he lacked any religious conviction, like
most Japanese, death to him meant the extinction of everything. The
only part of her that was still enduring was the daily items in the
'
house that she had used while she was alive.
When you were still here, Isobe thought, death seemed so far removed
from me. It was as though you stood with both arms outstretched, keeping
death from me. But now that you're gone, suddenly it seems right here in
front of me.
The only course left him was to go once every other week to the
cemetery at Aoyama, where he would splash water on the Isobe fam­
ily grave-marker, change the flowers and press his hands together in
prayer. This was the only response he could offer to his wife's plea to
'look for me, find me'.
December came. H e could not bear spending the holidays in an
empty house that was on the brink of disarray, precisely because his
late wife had been so fond of the decorations and the special delica­
cies of the New Year. To his great relief, a niece who was living in
Washington IX wrote and invited him to spend his holiday period in
the United States. Isobe accepted the invitation, hoping to find some
relief from the loneliness that persisted, no matter how busy he kept
himself.
He had lived for a time in Washington when he was still single. He
drove around the city in his niece's car, but little seemed to have changed.
His niece's husband, a researcher at the Georgetown University medi­
cal centre, took Isobe to his office on the campus, which reminded
him of an old European university, and he walked through the college
town, which felt like walking back into the nineteenth century. One
evening he found a book on the kitchen counter at his niece's: it was
a best-seller written by the famous film star Shirley MacLaine, com­
plete with a photograph of the author on the cover.
'This is Shirley MacLaine, is it?' Isobe asked. 'I really liked her in
the early days. I understand she's quite taken with Japan.'
'This is a very popular book right now,' his niece replied.
'What's it about?'
'She writes about her quest for her previous lives.'

22
 This niece of yours believes in all that nonsense.' Her husband
smiled sarcastically. 'Her bookshelf is filled with this kind of stuff­
books on New Age science and the like.' With the logic of a doctor, he
explained that in America a wave of exaggerated interest in the
paranormal and in near-death experiences had recently turned into
something of a social craze.
'The good doctor here can only think rationally about everything.'
Her cheeks puffed out i n displeasure. There's all kinds of things in
the world you can't explain away with rational argument.'
'That's only because they can't be explained yet. Some day science
will decipher them all.'
'But,' Isobe, who had been listening quietly, interjected, 'this book
by Shirley MacLaine - well, frankly, I have to admit I don't believe
in a previous life or anything - why has it become a best-seller? I'm
more interested in the answer to that.'
'There, you see?' Isobe's niece seemed to mistake his curiosity for
support of her views. 'I hear that research into these kinds of things
has been conducted in all seriousness at American universities ever
since the Vietnam War.'
'Only by psychologists who know nothing about science, and some
New Age philosophers,' her husband sneered . 'I'm told that there are
some people studying this business of previous lives at the University
of Virginia.'
'There certainly are. A book by a scholar named Stevenson at the
University of Virginia is number three on the best-seller list at our
local bookstore.'
'Who's this Stevenson fellow?'
'I haven't read his book yet, but apparently this professor and his
staff are collecting data on children from all over the world who claim
to have memories of their previous lives, and they're doing a full­
scale study of them.'
Sipping the mixed drink she had fixed for him, her husband shrugged
his shoulders. This is just too stupid even to talk about, he seemed to
be signalling.
Isobe twirled his glass with one hand, once again hearing his wife's
final words.
Had she seriously believed in a former life, or in a life to come? A
part of her had been naive enough to carry on conversations with
trees and flowers, and to believe in prescient dreams, and Isobe was
inclined to think that her rambling comments had been nothing more

23
than the product of an earnest yearning.
But that notion made him realize, with an attendant clutching pain in
his chest, how important he had been to his wife throughout her life.
He had not the slightest feelings of endorsement for anything like
an afterlife or reincarnation. Like his niece's husband, he had smiled
and nodded when she got worked up over her description of the
MacLaine book, but he had not meant any of it.
With a yawn, his niece's husband tried to bring the conversation to
an end. 'Why do women like to talk about such things?'
Well, my dead wife also . . .' Isobe started to say, but he stopped
himself. Although he did not believe in them, his wife's last words
remained a meaningful secret he did not want to reveal to anyone else.
They were like a precious memento his wife had bequeathed to him.

While he was killing time in the gift shop at the Washington

airport on the day of his departure, he discovered both Shirley
MacLaine's Out on a Limb and Professor Stevenson's Children Who
Remember Previous Lives propped in a corner of the display win­
dow, labelled as best-sellers. This seemed less like a coincidence
than the workings of some invisible power, and though he still did
not believe the preposterous things his niece had talked about, he
couldn't stifle the feeling that his dead wife had been pushing him
from behind, directing him towards the display window. Without
even thinking, he bought the books.
He began reading on the plane. A Pan Am stewardess who brought
him a drink glanced at the cover of the MacLaine book and said,
'That's a really interesting book. I was fascinated by it.' His niece's
claims had been right on target.
Isobe, however, was more impressed with the results of Professor
Stevenson's research. The professor reported on a variety of field stud­
ies, and there was something trustworthy in the way that he judi­
ciously and objectively noted that 'While these phenomena have
unquestionably occurred, we cannot conclude on the basis of these
experiences that individuals have had a previous life.' Reading this
persuasive study, Isobe began to feel just a glimmer of faith in his
·

wife's last words.

Dear Mr Osamu Isobe

Thank you for your letter of 25 May. I'll try to respond to the
questions you raised.

. 24
 Here at the University of Virginia, we have been conducting
studies on life after death under the guidance of Professor Ian
Stevenson since 1 962. At Professor Stevenson's direction, we have
searched out children under the age of three from many na tions
who claim to have recollections of a previous existence, and we
have been collecting testimonials from these children, as well as
objective statements from their parents and siblings, and even
information regarding their physical characteristics. Our studies
form just a part of the research that has been done since the
Vietnam War to cast light on near-death or out-of-body
experiences, paranormal powers, and other areas of investigation
that have borne fruit in the United States.
At the present time, the conditions we place upon instances of
'reincarnation' that have become the objects of our study are as
follows:
(1) instances for which a considerable amount of evidence
supporting the veracity of the claims exists, which cannot be
explained away as clairvoyance, telepathy, or subconscious
memory;
(2) instances in which the subject possesses a sophisticated
talent (such as speaking a foreign language or playing a musical
instrument) which they clearly could not have learned in their
present life;
(3) instances in which the subject has markings in the same
location as wounds which they received in the previous life they
are remembering;
(4) instances in which those experiences labeled as memories
display no significant reduction in clarity as the subject ages, and
which do not have to be induced through hypnotic trance;
(5) instances in which a large number of the survivors and
friends from the subject's past life confirm the person's
reincarnation over a long period of time;
(6) instances in which the identification between the subject and
the past personality cannot be explained through the influence of
parents or other individuals (the reason we put greatest emphasis
upon children under the age of three is that at later ages there
is an increased possibility that children will confuse and
hallucinate random conversations between adults with their own
memories).
We insist upon these rigorous conditions because our research

25
has nothing to do with the occult, with obscure religious
movements, or with clairvoyants, but is first and foremost a n
objective, scholarly study.
I should add that in no sense have we concluded at the
present time that human beings are in fact 'reincarnated'. We
have simply reported the fact that phenomena suggesting the
possibility of 'reincarnation' have been isolated in many nations
of the world.
We have collected over 1600 cases of 'reincarnation', but,
unfortunately, we have only one case in which the subject claimed
that her previous life was spent as a Japanese. The details of the
case are as follows.
A girl by the name of Ma Tin Aung Myo, who was born in the
village of Nathul in Burma in December of 1953, began to talk
incessantly about her previous life from the time she was about
four years old. One day while she was out walking with her
father, she saw an airplane flying overhead and began to wail
and shout, displaying evident terror. Thereafter she showed
extreme fear whenever she saw an airplane, and when her father
questioned her about it, she said it was because she knew she
would be shot at. Then she became downcast and began to plead,
'I want to go to Japan.'
With the passage of time she began to reveal that she had been
born in the northern part of Japan, that she was married and had
children (the number would sometimes vary with the telling), that
she was drafted into the army, and while stationed in Nathul,
when she was preparing to cook a meal beside a pile of firewood,
an enemy plane appeared overhead. She- that is, the Japanese
soldier - was standing there in a pair of shorts with a waist-band
wrapped around her stomach, when the enemy plane suddenly
did a steep dive and began strafing the ground with machine-gun
fire. She ran and hid behind the pile of firewood, but a bullet
struck her in the groin and she died instantly.
That is the story told by Ma Tin Aung Myo. She later claimed
she has the feeling that she ran a small shop in Japan before she
was drafted, and that 'in the army she had cook's duty, and that
the Japanese troops were in the process of withdrawing from
Burma when she was killed.
Her story does not include the name of the Japanese soldier, or
any of the names of his family or the places where he lived. She

- 26
does, however, dislike Burmese food, and prefers sweet foods and
a curry derived from very sugary coconuts. She says over and
over that she wants to go back to Japan where her children are, or
that she wants to go to Japan when she grows up. Her family
reports that Ma Tin Aung Myo mutters to herself in a language
they cannot comprehend, but we don't know whether it is
Japanese or just some infantile babblings. Strangely enough, she
has a scar in the groin area, in exactly the same location where
she claims she was shot in her previous life. For more details on
this case, I would encourage you to read Professor Stevenson's
research report.
I will, of course, be happy to contact you should we come
across any more cases in our research in which the subject claims
to have been Japanese in a previous existence.
Sincerely,

John Osis

Human Personality Research Division

Department of Psychology
University of Virginia School of Medicine

27
 TW O

The Informational Meeting

'The sacred river Ganges purifies the heart as it wanders through the
maze-like market-places where men and animals clamour. India, where
in ancient days civilization flowered on the banks of the Indus.'
Video images were projected one after another on to the screen: the
Taj Mahal, looking like a white teacup turned upside-down; an old
Brahmin monk with red markings on his forehead; an Indian dance
with erotic hand movements. The elderly composed well over half of
the twenty or so men and women gathered to hear a description of the
tour of Buddhist holy sites on which they would be embarking in
another two weeks.
To the accompaniment of coughs and quietly shifting bodies, slides
depicting scenery that all looked very much the same, and Hindu
temples that all looked very much alike, flashed on the screen. Broad
streets in Bombay and Calcutta, almost reeking of the smells of sweat
and body odours of the masses; Buddhist holy spots such as Lumbini,
Kapilavastu, Buddh-Gaya and Sarnath. It seemed strange to Mitsuko
to think that, though it was now autumn in Japan, in less than three
weeks she would be walking this land beneath the hot light of the
sun.
The lights came on. Mitsuko, sensing the smells of the other peo-

28
pie's breathing mingled with the air of the auditorium, pulled a hand­
kerchief from her purse. A man seated in front of her turned round
when he smelled the cologne that scented her handkerchief. A look of
surprise appeared on his face.
'Now your tour guide, Mr Enami, will discuss some items you should
be aware of to enjoy your trip. Please refer to the handout we've given
you.'
A man who looked to be thirty-four or -five, wearing round-rimmed
glasses, stood in front of the screen and introduced himself. 'My name
is Enami, and I'll be your guide. I was a student in India for about
four years. During that time, I was able to lead tours for this same
Cosmos Tours company, and from my experience there are three things
I'd like to bring to your attention. The first is the water. When we get
to India, please be sure not to drink any unboiled water. I would
encourage you either to drink water that has been boiled, or to drink
cola or juice. Some of our customers have ordered iced water or a
whisky on the rocks at the hotel and ended up with terrible stomach
problems because of the ice.'
He went on to describe the unique ways of using a toilet in India
and explained that the left hand was considered unclean. He cautioned
against patting children on the head with the left hand, and added
that they did not need to tip for services unless they made special
requests for assistance. Following precisely the items printed on the
handout, he explained how to look out for thieves.
'In India there is a religious system of social ranking known as the
caste system. They call it varna jati. It is very complex, and I can't
explain i t in simple terms. But i t would probably be useful for you to
know that there is a group of people who do not fit into even the
lowest varna. These people are known as outcasts or as untouchables.
Today the untouchables are called Harijans, a perfunctory title that
means "children of God", but in reality they are a people who have
been subjected to bigotry from early times. As you witness this dis­
crimination on your trip, it may be disturbing to you, but please bear
in mind that there is a long religious and his torical background to
this situation.'
When he had finished giving various suggestions for the trip, he
encouraged questions from the group.
'Excuse me, but so that we can get to know each other better, when
you ask a question, could you please state your name?'
Two or three people raised their hands.

29
 'My name is Numada. I would very much like to visit a wild bird
sanctuary. Is there a chance I could spend a little extra time in Agra
or Bharatpur?'
This tour is of the holy Buddhist sites, but you are all free if you
want to stay over in a particular town and then rejoin the group later.
You're fond of animals, are you?'
'Yes.'
'India itself is like a great natural animal sanctuary. Everywhere
you look there are monkeys and mongooses and dgers. And let's not
forget the cobras.' Everyone laughed. 'If you do decide to remain in a
particular place, however, we would ask that you stay in a hotel that
we designate. If you eat elsewhere, you'll be charged an extra fee.'
'I understand.'
After a woman asked about the climate and the appropriate cloth­
ing for this season in India, an elderly man raised his hand.
'Is it possible to request a memorial service at one of the temples in
India?'
'When you say temple, I assume you're talking not about a Hindu
temple but a Buddhist temple? I'm sorry, but your name is .. . ?'
'Kiguchi.'
'Mr Kiguchi, is there any particular type of memorial service you
are interested in?'
'No, but I lost a lot of friends during the war in the fighting in
Burma, and I fought against some Indian soldiers myself, so I thought
maybe I could request a memorial service on behalf of comrade and
foe alike. . . .
'

The group was silenced for a few moments.

'I can't promise anything, but generally I think those can be ar­
ranged. I should add one thing. In India today, adherents of the Hindu
religion make up an overwhelming majority, followed by Muslims,
while Buddhism has all but disappeared. Nominally the number of
Buddhists is said to be around three million, but in reality a large
number of the Buddhist devout are to be found among the untouch­
able class. To put it another way, the people at the lowest level of
society, those who do f!Ot fit into any of the social classifications, have
sought salvation in Buddhism, which teaches the equality of all man­
kind. The caste system has, in any case, been a pillar that has sup­
ported Hinduism and supported Indian society, and as a result Buddhism
has weakened there.'
This came as a surprise to the group. Their main purpose in travel-

30
ling to India was to visit famous locales associa ted with Buddhism,
and the impression was strong in their minds that India was the land
of the Buddha, the land of Sakyamuni.
'What is it then that the Hindus believe?' a guileless elderly woman
asked. She was setting out on this Buddhist pilgrimage with her hus­
band.
'Your name, please?'
'It's Okubo.'
'Thank you. Hinduism is very complex, and I can't explain it in
simple terms. I think the best way is to have you look at the images
of their gods after we actually arrive there. They believe in many
different gods, and let me show you a few slides right now.'
A peculiar female image was projected on to the screen . With one
foot she trampled on the corpse of a man, and her neck was adorned
not with a necklace but with severed human heads that she had flung
over her shoulder with one of her four arms.
'This is a representation of the goddess Kali , which often adorns
temples and homes in India. The holy mother Mary in Christianity is
a symbol of tender maternal love, but the goddesses of India are for
the most part called earth-mother goddesses, and while they are gentle
deities at times, they are also fearsome beings. There is one goddess in
particular, Chamunda, who has taken upon herself all of the sufferings
of the people of India. I want to be sure to take all of you to see her
image.'
When the lights came on, Mrs Okubo exclaimed, 'Whoo, tha t was
scary!', making everyone chuckle.
'Well, we've run past our allotted time, so we'll close this meeting.
Thank you all for your patience.' Enami pushed his thick glasses up
his nose and again bowed awkwardly.
When Mitsuko stood up and was about to start out of the audito­
rium with the rest of the group, the man who had been sitting in front
of her called out, 'Aren't you Miss Naruse?'
'Yes.'
'Don't you remember me? My name's Isobe - you took care of my
wife in hospital.'
The serene woman with terminal cancer and the husband who vis­
ited her nearly every day surfaced from the depths of Naruse Mitsuko's
memory.
'You did a great deal for her then. But I never thought I'd run into
you again in a place like this.'

31
 Isobe peered at Mitsuko as though he were searching her for some
memory of his wife, and she found his gaze stifling.
'It looks like we'll be travelling to India together. What a coinci­
dence.'
It was clear that she was trying to change the subject, so Isobe said,
'I had no idea you were interested in visiting Buddhist holy sites.'
'I don't have any particular interest in Buddhism.' She smiled non­
committally. Images of the goddesses who sought after human sacri­
'
fices and blood were still etched upon her eyelids. She herself had no
real sense of what she wanted to see in India. Perhaps she wanted to
superimpose upon herself images of goddesses who combined good
and evil, brutality and love. No. That wasn't all. There was one more
thing she sought.
'I thought your interest was in France, Miss Naruse.'
'Why did you think that?'
'I remember my wife saying something of the sort.'
'I did go to France once, but I don't like the place much.'
Mitsuko's unembellished response deflated lsobe, and he said noth-
ing for a moment. She realized the severity in her tone and said, 'I'm
sorry, I shouldn' t be so impudent. Are you just going to India as a
tourist, Mr Isobe?'
'Well, that's part of it.' He looked perplexed. 'I'm going in search of
something. It's really a sort of treasure-hunt.'
'Everyone seems to be going to India with different feelings. There
was that fellow who's interested in animals, and the man who wants
a memorial service for his war comrades.'
The pavement was strewn with dirty brown leaves that had fallen
from the roadside trees. A line of taxis was parked in front of the
door, and an American woman curiously examined a toy at an open­
air shop. Mitsuko felt burdened by Isobe, who still seemed to want to
talk, so she said, 'I must be going. I'll see you again at Narita Air­
port.'
'We're supposed to be there by ten-thirty, wasn't it?'
'Yes, two hours before departure.'
She bowed and clirn.bed into one of the waiting taxis. Through the
window lsobe's solitary figure retreated into the distance. The way he
carried his shoulders and slouched his back were the very image of a
lonely man who has lost his wife.
The taxi raced past the university that Mitsuko had attended, head­
ing towards the intersection at Yotsuya. The leaves of the phoenix

32
trees were a wilted yellow. When they stopped for the signal, she
could see the snack-bar called Allo-Allo she had frequented in her
college days, unchanged from those times. For a moment she was
drawn into her memories of those easy-going days when she had first
come to Tokyo from her home in the Kansai. In those days her friends
had all called her Moira. In this snack-bar she had tossed back glass
after glass of sake with her boy-friends. She had been a foolish stu­
dent then, imagining that these days spent with her classmates consti­
tuted some sort of 'youth'. Even at that time, unlike her school-friends
who thought only of the commonplace lives they would be leading in
the years ahead, she had wanted to live fully. But at a point in time
when she had not yet realized the difference between the two, that
pierrot had appeared before her. That fellow Otsu she had trifled with. . . .

33
 T H REE

The Case of Mitsuko

When she was a student in the French literature department of her

university, all of her friends called her Moira. Half in jest, they had
taken the nickname from the heroine in Julien Green's novel, Moi"ra,
which they were using as a text in their French language class.
Partly for the fun of it, the young woman Moira seduces the puri­
tanical student Joseph, who is renting a room in her family's house.
Because the university Mitsuko attended was operated by a male Catholic
order, a few of the students had received Christian baptism. There
was something about these Christian students that made the other
male students at the university look down on them as unapproach­
able, impossible to get along with, and boorish. They were not actu­
ally discriminated against, but most of them were regarded as somehow
undesirable companions.
At a party one evening, a couple of younger men tried to spur Mitsuko
into action.
'Hey, I know someth.i ng that'd be fun. Why don't you come on to
that fellow O tsu?'
'What department is he in?'
'He's in philosophy. He's the sort of fellow you feel like playing a
joke on just by looking at him. The kind who can't bring himself to

34
talk to a woman. I'm willing to bet he's a virgin.'
'Is he that timid?'
That's why you'd be just the person to sweeten him up, Miss Naruse.'
'But what for?'
'He's always got a big grin on his face, trying to get everybody to
like him. One look at him, and I'm positive you'll want to torment
him, Miss Naruse. You know what I'm talking about, don' t you?'
At that particular time, the student movement that momentarily rocked
the university had finally petered out, and a feeling of emptiness had
settled over a majority of the student body. Mitsuko herself was at the
age where she wanted to stretch her wings. Motivated by an inferi­
ority complex for having come to Tokyo from a small town, she pre­
vailed upon her father, who blinked at his daughter's self-indulgence,
and thanks to him she was able to rent an apartment that was luxur­
ious for a student. She gathered a group of friends around her, and
together they went out drinking brandy, which most of the rest could
not afford, and drove around in her sports car. Yet there was always a
hollowness in her heart. Whenever the young men told her she held
her liquor well, or that her car was flashy, a feeling something like
anger or desolation directed towards herself but inexpressible in words
issued forth from the depths of her heart.
'Well, I might, if I feel like it.'
'So seduce him the way Moira seduced Joseph. Using a key or some­
thing . . . .
'

There is a scene in Morra in which the heroine deliberately places

the key to Joseph's room between her breasts. To retrieve his key,
.
Joseph has no choice but to touch Mo ira's breasts. The young men
jokingly suggested a similar ploy to Miss Naruse.
That was one of the many irresponsible conversations she enjoyed
during her second year in college. Among university students in Tokyo,
it was commonplace for young women to drink sake, to smoke ciga­
rettes and to engage in such banter.
But that was all there was to it, and she gave no more thought to
Otsu. To her, a joke exchanged at a party was forgotten when the
party ended, and it evaporated from her mind like the candy-floss she
had bought at festivals as a child.
A couple of weeks passed. In a chair near the centre of the library
Mitsuko was thumbing through a dictionary, wrestling with the final
scene of Morra which she had to translate in class the following day.
Suddenly someone poked her in the back. When she turned round,

35
two lower classmen brought their faces close to hers, as though they
were about to reveal some vital secret.
'There's Otsu.'
'Otsu? Who? Oh, him?'
'Over there next to that pillar, can you see the fellow writing some­
thing down with a dead-serious look on his face? That's him.'
Even now, after many long years had passed, Mitsuko could still
remember the profiled face of O tsu she had seen that day. By their
day most university students had stopped wearing uniforms, but the
chubby O tsu had removed only the stiff-collared, rustic jacket of his
student uniform and sat in his chair with lhe sleeves of his white shirt
rolled up. He looked for all the world like a steadfast bank employee
perched at his desk, counting each precious banknote one by one.
'So I'm supposed to get something going with that sweat-hog?'
'You can understand why we want to goad him on, can't you?'
It was true: there was always a male student or two at the univer­
sity who provoked in a woman the urge to torment him. Otsu's bumpkin
look roused just tha t sort of feeling in the women at this university.
'You haven' t forgotten what you promised us at the party, have
you? Every night you can find him in the chapel, saying his prayers.'
'And I'm supposed to drag him down the path of degradation, right?
I'll think it over.'
Suddenly she took a dislike to having these lower classmen jabbing
her casually in the back, and she coldly dismissed them. Mitsuko still
had no desire to approach Otsu as a joke.
Her classmates, however, had one more plan for toying with Otsu.
When it reached closing-time, Mitsuko got up and started down the
stairs. d tsu was standing in the doorway, clu tching to his chest a
soiled collection of books wrapped in a furoshiki.
'Excuse me. . . . My name is Otsu,' he called to her in a craven
voice.
'What?'
'Kondo said you wanted to talk to me about something.'
Kondo, of course, was the student who had pointed out Otsu's seat
to Mitsuko.
'I have nothing to say to you,' she replied callously. 'They're all
just playing a trick on you.'
'On me? Kondo and his friends?' O tsu nodded. 'So that's it.'
'You aren't angry?'
'I'm used to it, ever since I was a child. Being made fun of.' An

36
affable smile, like a full moon rising, crested on his spherical cheeks.
'It's because you're too serious about everything.'
'It is? I just think of myself as a plain old ordinary person.'
'They say you're a square.' As she peered searchingly into his face,
Mitsuko was suddenly gripped by a perverse desire. She could under­
stand clearly why Moira had wanted to torment the puritanical
student Joseph. 'Everyone says that about you.'
'They do?'
'Yes. For starters, don' t you think it's a little strange these days to
be wearing that uniform in the middle of summer?'
'Sorry. It's just what I'm used to. I don't really do it on purpose.'
'Are you a Christian?'
'Ummhmm. My family are believers, and I've been one since I was
a child.'
'Do you really believe in it?' The question sprang to her lips unbid­
den. Even though she attended this Christian university, Mitsuko had
never considered believing in any of its teachings, and she hated even
having to listen to the sermons.
'Sorry,' Otsu answered like a child who has done something wrong,
'but I do.'
'Well, I just don't get any of it. You're a strange one.'
She turned away and, ignoring Otsu, went down the stairs. No mat­
ter from which angle you studied him, O tsu was not the kind of man
to stimulate the curiosity or interest of a young woman. Even today,
Mitsuko found it beyond belief that she had ever become entangled
with him. If anything, the whole thing had started from the rather
childish desire to make fun not of O tsu, but of the God in whom he
believed.
Several days after their meeting in the library, on a hot day just
before the summer vacation, Mitsuko had come out of classroom number
109 and was sitting on a shaded bench with another young woman
from the French department drinking cola from a paper cup. O tsu
stood out among the swarms of students passing in front of them
because he was the only one wearing a stiflingly hot black uniform
jacket as he walked along.
Mitsuko turned to her friend. 'That one's really a yokel, isn't he?'
'Him? He always dresses like that,' her friend answered. 'But he's
really quite good on the flute.'
'He plays the flute?'
'A while back, he played a Mozart piece at a university concert. It

37
was the first time anyone had ever heard him play, and we were all
surprised.'
'I can't believe it.'
'His grandfather was an important political figure.'
'Why does he wear that silly uniform?'
'You'll have to ask him.'
That was the first budding of curiosity Mitsuko felt about O tsu,
who previously had interested her not in the slightest. The malicious
element in the French department wanted to unne�e Otsu for reasons
different from Mitsuko's, however.
'Did you guys know that he's supposed to be very good on the
flute?'
Kondo and his crowd laughed when Mitsuko took them to task.
'Of course we did. That's what's so weird about him. We want you
to have some fun with him because he's weird.'
'Cut it out. I'm not interested.'
'I hear that every day after class he goes to the Kultur Heim.'
'The Kultur Heim?'
'Yeah, tha t old chapel at the other end of campus where the priests
all hang out.'
'What does he do there?'
'I suppose he says his prayers.'
So that was the kind of fellow he was. A man who resided in a
world towards which Mitsuko felt an instinctive revulsion.
'Miss Naruse, do you like that sort of fellow? Or do you hate them?'
'I hate them.'
Having lost track of the sorts of goals that had stirred up the gen­
eration of student rebels four or five years earlier, these young men
filled their hollow lives with mildly inflammatory incidents. And yet
they knew all along that their actions merely piled emptines: upon
emptiness.
When Mitsuko declared her ha tred for that kind of man, she was
half telling the truth and half lying. In a nebulous sort of way, she
sensed that O tsu led a life different from that of the ordinary student,
bu t at the same time she sniffed the aroma of hypocrisy so common
in such men, and that had led her to say 'I hate them.'
To find out whether the rumours were true, Mitsuko half-jestingly
proposed to the young men that after class she go to have a look
around the Kultur Heim, which was near the building where the priests
working at the university lived.

38
 The Kultur Heim was one of the oldest, most serene buildings on
the campus. Ivy covered half its walls, there were several meeting­
rooms on the first floor, and on the second floor was a chapel. She still
remembered that one of the steps on the way up creaked as she mounted
them. When she first enrolled at the school, she had come once with
some friends to look at the building, and that creaking stair had left
an impression on her mind. On that occasion, a foreign priest had
been kneeling in the chapel and praying, supporting his forehead with
one arm.
After classes, the chapel was baking in the intense sunlight that
poured in from the thickly growing summer garden. The silent chapel
was empty, and the only sound was the chime of a clock somewhere
in the distance. Its echoes somehow made her think of the university
in the southern United States that appears in Moi"ra.
'He's not here.' Mitsuko scowled at her comrades. 'Why do you tell
me such nonsense?'
'We're just passing along what everyone says about him . . . . This
really upsets you, doesn't it, Miss Naruse?'
Kondo and his chums understood Mitsuko's personality, but they
flinched at the harsh tone in her voice. Mitsuko herself was bewil­
dered by her own eagerness over something indefinable.
'It makes me sick to think of a man coming to a place like this and
dropping to his knees to pray.' The words spewed from her mouth. The
others were silent, trying to gauge the fluctuations in Mitsuko's emotions.
Five or six minutes had passed when they heard footsteps and a
creaking sound. They knew intuitively that the footsteps belonged to
Otsu. Before long he stood in the doorway, all eyes on him as though
he were some sort of ghost who had materialized, wrapped in a cor­
ona of light.
'Oh !' His eyes rounded in surprise, but he soon flashed a clumsy
smile. 'What are you doing here?'
'Mr O tsu.' In stark contrast to a few moments earlier, Mitsuko's
voice was tender. 'Is it true that you come here every day to pray?'
'Sorry, but it's true. But what are you . . . ?'
'We came to invite you to a party. You know the Allo-Allo near the
intersection at Yotsuya?'
'Behind the Chua Publishing Company on the corner?'
'That's the one. Wouldn't you like to join us?'
'But wouldn't I just be in the way?' he asked in confusion. 'I don't
have much experience at having a good time.'

39
 'There's nothing to be so nervous about. Are you coming or not?'
'Sorry. I'll come.'
As Mitsuko led the group out of the chapel, the clock at the bottom
of the stairs chimed five. The group of students began to jabber about
this unexpected development.
'Do you think he'll really come?'
'He will. Now, you fellows mustn't make fun of him. But I want
you to get him drunk.'
'We hear and we obey.'
The Allo-Allo, where Mitsuko and her group often hung out, stayed
open late, and to the great delight of Kondo and his chums, Mitsuko
always picked up half the tab.
But a half-hour, then an hour passed, and still O tsu had not ap­
peared.
'He's given us the slip.' From time to time they glanced regretfully
towards the door.
'No, he'll come.' For some reason Mitsuko declared this with confi­
dence. She remembered the look on Otsu's face when he responded to
her invitation with an amiable smile and a promise to come. She was
convinced that, like Joseph, it was his morra, his fate, to fall into her
trap.
No sooner had she proclaimed her faith in Otsu than the door to the
snack-bar gave the same creak as the stairs at the Kultur Heim. And
Otsu, carrying a school bag in one hand, entered timidly through the
door, his face the picture of virtue.
'A drink to make up for your tardiness. Drink up!' Kondo picked
up a glass and held it out to O tsu.
Tm afraid I'm not much of a drinker.'
'But you must!'
While the company chanted 'Drink up! Drink up!' Otsu gaspingly
drained the glass of its amber liquid. The other students stared at one
another dumbfounded at the way he tossed back his drink.
'Miss Naruse, won' t you have a drink in return?' O tsu cordially
held his glass out to her. 'We can make it just half a glass since
you're a woman.'
Why? Because I'm a woman? Fill 'er to the brim.' Her pride wounded,
Mitsuko thrust the glass forward for filling, then poured the stinging
liquid down her throat as the group again shou ted 'Drink up! Drink
up!' A bone-chilling sense of emptiness suddenly sickened her. What
the hell am I searching for, doing these ridiculous things? Letting these

40
men goad me on, making fun of Otsu - is this what my life is all abo u t ?
To quell her cheerless thoughts, Mitsuko emptied her glass and chal­
lenged Otsu to another round .
Otsu shook his heild. 'That's enough. Sorry. I shouldn't have done
tha t.'
'Why not? You haven' t done anything wrong,' she retorted. 'You
say the strangest things.'
'I give up. Sorry.'
'"Sorry, sorry" - you're going to depress all of us.'
Mitsuko's anger was directed towards herself. Towards the hollow-
ness within herself. O tsu had probably never fel t like this.
'Mr O tsu, do you really go to Kultur Heim and pray every day?'
'Sorry, I . . .' he prevaricated.
'Are you really doing so sincerely?'
'Sorry.' Otsu surprised them by continuing, 'I'm not sure whether I
believe in it or not.'
'Well, you certainly spend a lot of time on your knees for not being
sure.'
'I don' t know if it's just force of habit I've got into over the years,
or inertia. All my family were Christians, and my dead mother was a
firm believer, so maybe just out of my attachment to her I . . . I can' t
explain it very well.'
'If it's just inertia, you should dump the whole nonsense.'
Otsu did not reply.
Mitsuko stared beguilingly at O tsu . 'I'll help you get rid of it.'
Someone in Kondo's group muttered, 'Moira has finally showed up.'
Along with Mo"ira, she thought of Eve, the same Eve who seduced
Adam and caused the eternal banishment of mankind from the garden.
Within each woman lurked the impulsive drive to destroy herself.
'Have another drink.'
'All right.' O tsu's answer was compliant, and he brought the glass
to his lips. Mitsuko could tell he was doing his best to be docile and
keep the mood of the party from souring. That realization made her
even more furious.
'You really must forsake this God of yours. We're going to keep
pouring liquor down you until you promise us you'll forsake him. If
you'll dump him, we won't make you drink any more.'
For these students, this was no more than idle fu n. Only Mitsuko
was instinctively aware how heavily the words she spoke in jest weighed
on Otsu's heart.

41
 'So which will it be? Are you going to drink, or are you going to jilt
him?'
'I'll drink.' Otsu's face was flushed all the way to his ears. He was
clearly the sort who suffered considerably when he drank sake. For no
reason Mitsuko recalled hearing about the officers in the age of Chris­
tian persecution in Japan who had forced the believers to trample upon
the fumie. What exhilaration those officers must have felt as they made
another person betray the God in whom he believed.
His shoulders heaving as he panted for breath, O tsu drank down a
third of the glass that had been set in front of him. Then suddenly he
leaped to his feet and staggered towards the bathroom.
'That's enough.' Weary of the game, one of the students implored
Mitsuko. 'He's going to throw up. If you make him drink any more,
he'll pass out.'
'No.' Mitsuko shook her head perversely. 'He's going to drink until
he promises.'
'You're vicious.'
'Aren't you the ones who told me I had to play the role of Moira?'
'Well, yes, but . . . there are limits.'
Eventually a pale-faced Otsu, wiping his mouth with a cheap white
handkerchief, carne back, supporting himself with one hand against
the wall. 'Could I have some water, please?' he begged. 'I vomited.'
'No water. Have some more sake. Otherwise, you must keep your
promise.'
Otsu tossed a rueful look at Mitsuko, who was leaning back against
a pillar with folded arms. Like a dog pleading for mercy. The look
further stimulated her enmity. 'But,' he begged.
'But what?'
'Even if I try to abandon God . . . God won't abandon me.'
Mitsuko gaped in disbelief at the man's face, which appeared ready
to break into tears at any moment. Otsu covered his mouth again and
tottered towards the bathroom.
'There, you see? He wasn't able to hold his drink after all,' Kondo
mumbled, placating his own conscience.
Despite O tsu's efforts, a pall settled over the group, and Mitsuko
stood up. 'I'm going horne. This is a bore.' All she knew for certain
was that the clumsy man who had scurried to the toilet was unlike
anyone she had ever met.

Much later, when Mitsuko thought back on how she had behaved

- 42
in those days, she had to lower her eyes in embarrassment. She was
overcome with self-loathing. A country girl enjoying her first year of
college in Tokyo had been nearly desperate to open herself to experi­
ence. Along with her revulsion, she sensed the existence of some inex­
plicable thread, something invisible to the eye that had bound her to
Otsu. Though there was no reason for such a thing to be possible.
Mitsuko and her friends had left the snack-bar, discarding O tsu,
who was still vomiting in the bathroom, like an old rag. The follow­
ing day she was not the least bit conscious of his existence until she
went to school and saw him sitting dejected on a bench beside the
student activity building. Only then did she recall her coldness of the
previous night.
'Mr Otsu.'
Once again he looked up at her with remorse, like a mongrel that
had fallen into a ditch. A slender pinpoint of contrition pricked at her
heart.
'I'm sorry about yesterday. ! . didn' t think you'd be such a poor
drinker.'
'Sorry. After you were so kind to invite me along . . . . ' To her sur­
prise, Otsu lowered his head. 'I'm always like this. I try my hardest to
fit in with the group, but I end up failing and spoiling everybody's
fun.'
Feeling both pity and scorn for O tsu's good-naturedness, she sat
duwn beside him. She peered into his eyes, drew her face near his and
whispered, There is a way to make friends, you know.'
'Yes?'
'It's simple. Stop wearing that serge uniform. And stop going to
Kultur Heim in the evening and kneeling down to pray. Your mother
may have believed it, but you don't have to believe that kind of stuff.'
'That kind of stuff . . . '
'I'm just a stupid young woman, but even I know what Marx had
to say about religion. And I know that Western Christianity plun­
dered many lands and killed many people in the name of spreading
their gospel. When you get caught up in that kind of stuff, it spoils
all the other students' fun. For one thing, you're not really sure you
believe it, are you?'
'I'm not. But I haven't the courage to decide everything on the basis
of logic like you do. I was brought up in that environment ever since
I was a child, and . . . .'
Suddenly Mitsuko was bored. Why in the world was she sitting on

43
this bench fraternizing with this tiresome man? Beside a man who
held no interest for her?
'You must stop going to that Kultur Heim, starting today. If you do,
I'll let you be one of my boy-friends.'
To dispel her ennui, Mitsuko voiced a notion that floated up in her
mind like a bubble. Even as she spoke the words, she wondered if
Mo"ira had seduced the solid student Joseph in an attempt to escape
the same hollowness she now felt.
'Now listen to me.' She pressed her thigh as though accidentally
against his trousers. 'You mustn't go there to pray any more.'
The thrill of snatching away from a man something he believes in.
The pleasure of deforming a man's life. She pressed more firmly against
his thigh and watched with satisfaction as O tsu's expression clouded
over.
With that, she raced off to class.
Throughout her morning and afternoon classes, she savoured her
achievement and chuckled to herself. Listening to the gruff voice of
the French priest who taught seventeenth-century literature beneath
the hot afternoon sun, she initiated a conversation with the God in
whom she had no faith. The way a child makes up an imaginary
friend and talks to it.
'Well, God, wha t would you think if I stole this fellow away from
you?'
The thought rescued Mitsuko from the tedium of the lecture. When
the white-haired priest finally collected his books and left the class­
room, she set ou t for the Kultur Heim with a mixture of anticipation
and curiosity rattling about in her head.
In the old building covered with tangled vines the smells of damp­
ness and plaster faintly mingled. When she climbed the worn steps,
one of them creaked as it had on her previous visit.
The chapel was deserted. She sat in the seat furthest to the back, out
of view of the doorway, and decided to remain there for no more than
twenty minutes. She knew that the solemn chimes of the large clock at
the bottom of the stairs would announce the time every fifteen minutes.
Well-used hymnals, prayer-books and Bibles were scattered amongst
the pews. With a yawn, she flipped open the large Bible that rested in
the pew in front of her and began to read .

. . . he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him,

there is no beauty that we should desire him.

44
 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from
him . . . .
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.

Mitsuko put her hand to her mouth and yawned again. These words
had no reality for her. How was O tsu able to read and believe these
lifeless phrases? She recalled the self-loathing words Otsu had uttered:
'I'm always like this. I try my hardest to fit in with the group, but I
end up failing a nd spoiling everybody's fun.' She wondered if Otsu
had read this page in the Bible.
As if that thought were some sort of signal, a stair creaked. It was
not O tsu who appeared, however, but a priest who laboured at the
university, dressed in his white summer robes. Unaware of Mitsuko's
presence, he knelt near the altar and clasped his fingers together. She
watched him from behind for a time, feeling as though she were look­
ing at some bizarre extra terrestrial, but finally she tired of tha t and
began speaking to the scrawny, naked man on the cross hanging to
the right of the altar.
'He's not going to come, you know. He's dumped you .' She ad­
dressed the ugly man she did not believe in, then heard the clock a t
the foot of the stairs announce the passage o f fifteen minutes.
She stood up and left the chapel. When she opened the door of the
Kultur Heim, which had seemed almost like the incarnation of tran­
quillity, her ears were suddenly flooded with the sounds of the student
band practising their music and the young men in the sports teams shouting
to one another. There on the bench where she had earlier sat she found
Otsu, perched glumly with a bundle of books on his lap.
'Mr O tsu!' Mitsuko called ou t in an excited voice, like a woman
who has discovered her lover at their chosen rendezvous. 'You kept
your promise to me, didn' t you?'
'Yes.' Otsu lifted his head and forced a painful smile. 'But . . .'
'I'll keep my promise too. I'll let you be one of my boy-friends.
Let's go.'
'Go . . . where?'
To my room.' Mi tsuko sadistically surveyed her prey. A man who
listens to anything I tell him, a man who will abandon even God for
me - a man like that I want to torture even more. Slw sna tched up a
book from the pile on Otsu's lap and found it was a work by Nakamura
Hajime.

45
 'Wow, so you read stuff like this, do you?'
O tsu sluggishly rose from the bench and followed hesitatingly be­
hind her.
'Can't you walk any faster? So you're interested in Buddhism, huh?'
'Not really. Professor Bell in the philosophy department is making
us write a report on this book.'
'Professor Bell - isn't he that Catholic priest who does Zen medita­
tion? But in his heart of hearts he's still a European, isn't he? That
'
foreigner teaches you about this kind of stuff?'
'Yes.'
1 hate that. The priests here all talk like they know everything there is
to know about Buddhism and Shinto, but in their hearts they think that
European Christianity is the only true religion.' Mitsuko repeated the
speech she had delivered numerous times since her arrival at the univer­
sity to even the most marginally honest of students. By 'even the most
marginally honest of students' Mitsuko and her friends meant those who
had enrolled at this Christian university but refused to be baptized.
'Is that so? Maybe that's true.' O tsu gave a vague, faint-hearted
reply, looking back over his shoulder from time to time. Mitsuko real­
ized what he was unconsciously searching for.
'Am I the only one' - hesitation appeared in his eyes - 'coming to
your room?'
'Yes, just you. Nobody else is around today - not Kondo, not Tanabe,
or anyone.' She started to say 'Now you've become my boy-friend',
but she deposited the words away in the strong-box of her heart. It
was a savings account she could draw upon later to taunt this young
man. You are prey that has already fallen into my trap.
She unlocked the door at her Kojimachi 2-chome apartment.
'Here we are,' she said, urging him on. 'What are you waiting for?
Take off your shoes.' She gently nudged Otsu's shoulder.
'Sorry,' O tsu said, his voice almost a gasp.
'You're just like Joseph.'
'Who's he?'
'A student in the novel Moi'ra by Julien Green. He's a country boy
just like you, a student who shakes whenever he's near a girl.'
'I am frightened. I've never done this before.'
'In the end, though, Joseph succumbs to Moira's seduction.'
Otsu was speechless. He squinted at Mitsuko. The expression was
so different from his usual attempt to force a smile tha t he seemed
almost like a separate person.

46
 'And,' he swallowed hard, 'what happened to this Joseph?'
'Joseph?' For the first time, Mitsuko had a vivid recollection of the
novel's ending. 'Joseph ends up murdering the temptress Moira.' She
knew, of course, that Otsu lacked such courage. Her pleasure was rooted
in that knowledge.
For a time nothing was said.
'Is that really wha t happens?' He looked up at her inquisitively.
Why were men all the same in the end? She realized that she had
hoped to find something in O tsu that was different from the other
students. Something the other men lacked. A dream of trees, a dream
of wa ter, a dream of fire, a dream of the desert.
She took a can of beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Otsu.
As she reached towards him, she purposely staggered against him to
provide him with a pretext for action. But he steadied her and tried
nothing else. Only when she said 'A coward, aren't you?' did the lust
tha t had been pent up for many years suddenly burst open, and he
pounced on her body. His breath smelled of the curry he must have
eaten in the student cafeteria. Mitsuko was gripped by the urge to tear
herself apart.
'Wait.' She pushed him away with both hands. 'Let me at least take
a shower.'

The pleasure of sullying herself was blended with abhorrence at her

motivation. The sweaty smell of his body, the curried stench of his
breath, the clumsy, bumbling touch of his hands as he stroked a young
woman's breasts for the first time. Mitsuko, who had been intimate
with several young men since entering college, coolly observed his
movements, as she always did.
'You really don't know anything, do you?' she remarked as she
watched O tsu's head move up and down above her chest.
'Sorry.'
His answer irritated her, but she was aware of how clear her thoughts
were in the innermost part of her brain. Unlike other young women,
she was unable to give herself over to ecstasy no matter who the man
might be.
From somewhere in the apartment building she could hear a base­
ball game being broadcast on television. She allowed Otsu to fondle
her, but she would not permit him to kiss her or engage in intercourse.
And in the midst of it all, she made sure to ask: 'Are you going to go
to church next Sunday?'

47
 He said nothing.
'You're not going?'
'No.'
She closed her eyes and endured O tsu's lips snailing across her
chest. Her feelings were tinged with an emptiness like a sudden chill
wind tha t scatters cherry blossom. The ugly, naked figure of the man
she had seen beside the altar in the Kultur Heim came back to life at
the back of her tightly clenched eyes.
'So, wha t do you think?' she said to the scrawny 'man. 'You're com­
pletely powerless. I win. I think he's pretty much jilted you. He's dumped
you and come to my room.'
He's jilted you . . . . As she formed the words in her mind, Mitsuko
suddenly thought of the day to come when she would cast Otsu off.
By now she had already come to understand. The pleasure she took
from Otsu derived not from anything even remotely carnal, but from
O tsu's rejection of that man.
The sensations of pleasure, which ultima tely receded like an ebb
tide. In the insta n t that her prey gave his last dying pant, Mitsuko's
joy of the hunt summarily faded and died.
I wo11der how I should appease him when it's all over?
She could almost see Otsu's face clouded with surprise and entreaty.
Because he was so inexperienced and sombre, and particularly be­
cause this was his first encounter with passion, he probably would
not consider this just a college fling, like the other male students did.
In Morra, Joseph in a fit of rage put his hands around the throat of the
woman who had enticed him into evil and choked her to dt:ath.
'That's enough. I'm tired of it.'
That evening, finally bored, she pushed O tsu, who was nestled up
against her, aside. The sun had set, and the blare of motor-cycle en­
gines and other noises she had been able to hear throughout most of
the day had finally given way to silence. Beneath her window, a young
woman was singing.

'We'll shake, we'll shake the tree of dreams,

That solitary tree of dreams
In the centre of the verdant field.'

As she listened to the song, Mitsuko suddenly recalled the days of

her youth, lost so long ago.
'Go home.'

48
 'Have I . . . done something to make you angry?'
'Yes. I'm tired of you.'
Otsu would not think of protesting. She watched as he turned his
back and dejectedly began to dress.
'Have you decided what you're going to write your thesis on?' She
couldn't help feeling sorry for him, and dutifully asked the question.
'Yes, scholasticism in the modern age.'
'What in the world does that mean?' It was all she could do to keep
from laughing at the pompous topic that emerged from the mouth of
this man, who just minutes before had been gorging himself like a
child on her breasts. 'Is that something Professor Bell told you to do?'
'Sorry. Professor Bell says if you don't know something about schol­
asticism, you really can't understand Europe.'
'It's nothing more than a relic of the past, isn't it? It's just a weapon
the priests use to defend their own stale religion. I don't know much
about it, but there can't be anybody in Japan doing such outdated
research.'
'Professor Bell says it has to be done because there are so few Japa­
nese who really understand Europe.'
'Strange, isn't it - telling a man who can come to a woman's room
to write about Christian philosophy?'

Three Sundays that stank like rotted figs passed. As she wa tched
Otsu's head sway above her, Mitsuko thought of other things. O tsu
was all alone in his ecstasy, the only one absorbed in what he was
doing; Mitsuko stared vacantly at the calendar hanging on her wall. I
want to go somewhere, go somewhere in search of something. Something
real. something enduring. I want to seize hold of life . . . . Before she was
even aware, the pages of the calendar, with its photographs of land­
scapes from all over Japan, had flipped over to a snowy December
scene in the north-east.
'During the winter vacation, I think maybe I'll go to Bangkok.' She
was speaking not to Otsu, whose face was buried between her bare
breasts, but to herself.
'What?' Otsu lifted his head. The sweat that beaded his forehead
and the spittle that stained his mouth were disgusting.
'Where are you going to spend winter break?'
'Me?' A smile of undiluted goodness flashed in his bloodshot eyes.
'I'm staying in Tokyo. My family's here.'
'Don't you want to go skiing or something?'

49
 'I'm kind of uncoordinated, so I'm not really good at skiing. What
about you?'
'I'd like to go to Bangkok, or maybe Guam.'
'By yourself?'
'Don't be silly. Kondo and some of the other fellows said they'd
come too.'
'Kondo?'
It pleased Mitsuko to see Otsu's face contort in Mony. Just like the
evening when she first brought him to her room, a young girl was
singing beneath her window. As she listened to the song, she con­
cluded that the time had come to dump Otsu.
'Is there some reason I can't go with Kondo?'
'Do you love me?'
'I don't belong to anyone. Not to Kondo, not to you.'
'Have you been to bed with Kondo?'
'Of course,' she answered defiantly. 'We're not at high school, you
know.'
'Then,' he asked fearfully, 'you don't love me?'
'Don't talk like a child. You've had more than your share of fun.
It's about time to finish up here anyway.'
O tsu sat up and searched Mitsuko's face, humiliation brimming in
his eyes.
'I was planning to . . . to introduce you to my father and brother one
of these days.'
'Your family? Ah, I guess you're a Christian after all, hmm?'
'He's a very good father to me. I think he'll understand how I feel
about you.'
'O tsu, I have no intention of marrying you.' She sat up and can­
didly declared, 'Not you, or anybody else I'm seeing just now.'
'But you said I was your boy-friend . . . . '
'I did. But you can't marry every single boy-friend that comes
along.'
'You're horrible,' O tsu said loudly. It was a voice filled with an
anger unusual for him. 'You're awful. I could kill you.'
'Why don't you?'
Joseph had surrendered to his rage and strangled Morra. But Mitsuko
had seen that Otsu lacked that same courage.
'Go home,' she said coldly. 'I'm sick of you.'
Otsu's head drooped, and he said nothing.

50
 'We'll shake, we'll shake the tree of dreams,
That solitary tree of dreams
In the centre of the verdant field.'

The girl below the window was singing the same nursery song as
before.
'Get out.'
Otsu's round, honest face twisted. Then he turned away, noisily put
on his shoes, noisily opened the door, and disappeared.
Several days later, a pleading letter arrived from Otsu. Mitsuko read
quickly through it and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. He also
telephoned, but as soon as she heard his voice, she hung up without a
word. When he laid in wait for her at school, she spoke as though
nothing had happened. 'Hello, how are you?,' she would call to him,
and then hurry away, surrounded by her friends.

The man Mitsuko married was so plain and proper that her old
school chums were startled.
She had got into the habit of saying, 'Playing around and getting
married are two different things.' But when her college friends came to
the reception at the Hotel Okura and saw her standing and bowing to
guests in front of a gold screen with her new husband, her parents and
the go-between, they whispered to one another: 'She's a shrewd one, that
bitch. That poor sap of a groom probably thinks she's a virgin.'
The husband, chosen through a series of arranged interviews, was
the son of a contractor who was erecting a series of high-rise build­
ings in Tokyo, and though he was still only twenty-eight, he had
been given an executive position with the company. When the recep­
tion concluded, another party was held in the hotel bar, attended by
the sons of equally famous businessmen and politicians, and their
topics of conversation ranged from golf to their new sports cars to
recent happenings at the young men's association meeting. Mingling
with his peers, Mitsuko's husband conversed with such enthusiasm
he seemed a completely different person from the man she had got to
know during their brief engagement. Mitsuko was the one who ended
up standing to the side, smiling and pretending to be listening.
Shortly after they became engaged, Mitsuko realized how different
were her own sensibilities from those of the man who would become
her husband . In the early stages of the relationship she invited him
along to an exhibition of Roualt prints and to a concert by the Vienna

51
Chamber Orchestra, but she soon realized that he was going simply
out of duty.
'I can't help it. I just don't know anything about paintings.'
She was chilled by his faint snores as he leaned against her and
dozed when they went to see Morishita Yoko's ballet corps, but the
frankness of his admission that he did not understand such things
reminded her of O tsu. I'm marrying this man, she honestly felt at the
time, so that I can overcome my selfish impulses.
Once she became a member of normal society, she started to under­
stand how foolish had been the urge to corrupt herself that had raged
through her body during her college years. Something destructive lurked
within the depths of her heart. Mitsuko wanted to wipe out every
mark of its existence, the way an eraser removes every trace of writ­
ing on a blackboard, before it assumed tangible form. She wanted to
marry a man who had no interest in and no understanding of any of
the things that stimulated the destructive force within her - Wagner's
operas, Redan's paintings - and she wished earnestly, whole-heartedly
to become a commonplace housewife and to bury herself like a corpse
amongst men and women who were replicas of her husband.
'Yat-chan, you simply must trade in that Benz of yours,' one of her
husband's friends demanded at the party after the reception. 'The only
people who drive Benzes these days are gangsters. There are plenty of
nice new models made right here at home.' This friend, who worked
for an automobile company, turned his glance towards Mitsuko. 'One
day soon you should test drive one of our cars, Mitsuko.'
'I'm afraid I don't know anything about cars.'
'Well, whatever the case' - he appeared suddenly to recall some­
thing - 'do you happen to know a man named Otsu?'
'Yes, there was a fellow named O tsu at my university,' she
answered without changing expression. 'If that's the Otsu you mean . . . '
'My elder sister married his brother. Her brother-in-law told her
he'd had a terrible crush on a coed named Naruse.'
'Really? He was in a different department altogether.' Without the
least hesitation in her voice, she elicited a laugh from the group by
saying: 'I had no idea , If I'd known that, I wouldn't have married
this Yano fellow.'
Her husband gave an acrid smile for the benefit of his friends, but
his face was puffed with pride.
'Too late, I'm afraid,' the friend responded. 'This Otsu has gone into
a seminary in Lyon. He's going to become a Catholic priest.'

52
 'A priest - doesn't that mean that he can never associate with women?'
someone interjected . 'So he'll have to stay a virgin his whole life?'
Her eyes on the table, Mitsuko picked up her champagne glass and
brought it to her lips. So O tsu had en tered a seminary. He would
become a priest. The man who had clung to her breasts like an infant,
his head rising and falling above her. She drained her glass, just as
she had one night many years before.
'You're quite a drinker, aren't you, Mitsuko?' Yano's friend remarked
with surp1ise.
'She is, she is,' her husband beamed . 'Even I can't keep up with
her. She can drink four dry martinis and act like i t's nothing at all.'
'My father was a heavy drinker.' Trying her hardest to shift the
conversation away from Otsu, she thought of an aftemoon in the Kultur
Heim. The chapel where the foreign priest in his white robes had been
praying. The chiming of the clock at the bottom of the staircase. The
words she had defiantly hurled towards the cross at the altar: 'What
would you think i f I stole this fellow away from you?'
But the scrawny, powerless man with his arms outstretched on the
cross had at some point reclaimed <5 tsu. Still, that does11' t change the
fact that I won. With startling rapacity God had merely picked up a man
I discarded.
Her husband, having no inkling what was going through her mind,
was listening with relish to his friend talk about the sports car he
owned . Scanning his profile, Mitsuko fashioned an image of the life
she would spend with this man. This is fine. All I have to do is bury
myself in this happy, simple face.
It was Mitsuko's idea to limit their honeymoon trip to France. Yano
had wanted to go to the west coast of the United States, which he had
visited many times, but she was able to get her way.
'You just want to go to France?' he asked, deflated. 'Don't you want
to go to London and Rome and Switzerland too?'
'I wan t to take my time seeing France. That's what I've always
wanted to do.'
Their hotel in Paris near the Seine was an American-style intercon­
tinental facility she knew her husband would like. She herself would
have preferred a smaller, more old-fashioned French pe11sio11, but on
this point she compromised.
From their hotel near the place de Ia Concorde they were able to
walk to the Church of La Madeleine, the Impressionists' museum and
the Louvre.

53
 Yet, though she had anticipated that such a thing might happen,
her disappointment began the day after they arrived in Paris.
'This square is one of the sites of the Revolution. At the time of the
uprising, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were both beheaded by the
guillotine here,' she had said with excitement.
But her husband gave only a dutiful nod, 'Oh?' It was clear he had
no i nterest in the French Revolution or in Marie Antoinette. Before
their departure, the only tourist information with which his friends
had provided him involved the taking in of Lido shows, the purchase
of Sulka neckties, the climbing of the Eiffel Tower and the visiting of
chanson bars in Montmartre.
At the Louvre he spread open the Paris tour book he had bought in
Japan, and he scurried around the museum looking only at the must­
see paintings. 'So this is the Mona Lisa. How about that?' He nodded
in satisfaction.
As she watched his behaviour, Mitsuko remembered a scene ex­
actly like this in the novel she had analysed in her senior thesis for
the French literature department. This was Therese Desqueyroux, by the
Nobel Prize author Franc;ois Mauriac. The protagonist, Therese, is the
daughter of a provincial landowner from Landes, near Bordeaux, and
she marries Bernard, the son of another landowner from the same re­
gion. Remarkably for a young man of this area, Bernard had gradu­
ated from the department of law at a university in Paris. Like her
family, he was a Catholic, and he was a prime catch for people of
their status.
Following a grand, countrified wedding ceremony they set off to
Paris on their honeymoon, but it was not long before she, like Mitsuko,
began to weary of her husband.
Therese's husband was by no means a bad man. His way of think­
ing was doggedly conventional, and admittedly he was an excessively
plain man of good common sense. He was one of those men who
sought never to stray from the accepted standards of public morality
and practical wisdom, and more than anything feared veering from
the beaten track; his fondest desire was to lead an uneventful life. It
was his very effort to give no offence that made Therese feel an inex­
plicable weariness whenever she was by his side.
Mauriac, whose depiction of these traits of Bernard is so nonchalant
as to be almost brutal, sketches out a scene in which Therese and her
husband visit the Louvre on their honeymoon. There Bernard opened
up his Michelin guide and raced from room to room, looking only at

54
the 'famous paintings that must be seen'. The Mona Lisa had been one
such painting.
'This place is too big. I'm exhausted. I just don't know anything
about paintings.' Yano abandoned his attempt half-way and told his
wife he would wait for her at the coffee shop in the museum.
Left to herself, Mi tsuko felt a sense of liberated pleasure. Without
even thinking of doing so, she began to compare Bernard and her
husband, and Therese to herself. Pondering why she had chosen Therese
Desqueyroux instead of Moi'ra for her senior thesis, Mitsuko even be­
gan to sense a frightening premonition in her selection.
That day, in a bookstore on the Palais-Royal near their hotel, she
bought the familiar old Grasset edition of Therese Desqueyroux. She
recalled the days she had spent at the university reading this novel in
the original, referring frequently to her dictionary to help her though
a more perplexing use of the French language than she had encoun­
tered in Julien Green. It was about the time, after dumping O tsu, that
she had realized her own folly and began to throw herself into her
studies.
Looking at her husband asleep beside her, she reread the portion of
the novel describing Therese's wedding night. Bernard sought out
Therese's body like a pig rooting in its sty. Mitsuko's husband and,
many years earlier, O tsu, had behaved in exactly the same way.
'Are you still awake?' Yano turned over and looked sleepily at her.
'Put your book down and go to sleep.'
'Uh-huh.'
So O tsu was going to become a priest. And he was now here in
France, in Lyon. That scrawny man had picked up what she had cast
away. Like a young child who rescues a filthy, wailing puppy tha t
has fallen into a ditch.
'I've had enough of Paris,' her husband all but shrieked as they ate
breakfast in the hotel the following morning. 'Nothing but museums
and plays day after day.'
'I'll bet you'd rather see the shows at the Lido or in Montmartre.'
'I suppose so. I'd like to see them just so I'd have something to talk
about after coming all this way to Paris.'
'Well, that does create a problem. As a woman I'm not interested in
places like that. I wonder if there's anyone who could take you to the
kinds of places you'd enjoy.'
'There is. One of my company's clients has a branch office here in
Paris.'

55
 Then why don't you have someone from there show you around?
It doesn' t make any difference to me.' She put down her coffee-cup.
'Right, I think I'll take a little trip out of Paris by myself and come
back in four or five days. While I'm gone, you can have your fill of
fun wherever you'd like.'
'By yourself? Where would you go "out of Paris"?'
'There's a place I've always wanted to visit. You know tha t novel
I've been reading in bed since we arrived? It's the book I wrote my
graduation thesis on. And now I've finally come ' to France. I want to
see the area where the novel takes place. It's near Bordeaux.'
'Doesn't it seem a little strange to go off in different directions for
four or five days on our honeymoon?'
That's what's fun about it!' She opened her eyes wide, relishing her
own suggestion. 'Let's each of us enjoy this trip. You can stay here in
Paris eating delicious food and seeing your amusing shows . . . . '
'When you say "near Bordeaux", just where do you mean?' Yano
still seemed unpersuaded.
'A region called Les Landes. It's a wilderness, with sand and pine
groves stretching as far as the eye can see. I really want to see what it
looks like.'
Yano was reluctant for a time to let his wife go off by herself, bu t
ultimately his new bride won the day. When they finally reached that
conclusion, Mitsuko felt, just as she had in the Louvre, a sense of
emancipation, this time greater than the first, spread through her breast.
Look at yourself. Mitsuko took herself to task. You stili haven't aban­
doned your true feelings. Weren't you planning to bury yourself in your
husband?
She averted her eyes from him as he munched on his breakfast and
mu ttered within her heart: This will be my final selfish act. Just vne last
time. After that, 1'/i become a humdrum housewife.
The day she left Paris was slightly overcast. She shared her com­
partment on the train for Bordeaux with an old woman knitting, a
middle-aged father and his young daughter. The girl stared into
Mitsuko's face and demanded 'Est-ce que Madame est Chinoise?' Her
father reproved her for her rudeness, but his smug gaze shifted cease­
lessly back and forth from the gully between Mitsuko's knees to the
copy of Therese Desqueyroux that rested on her lap.
She had forgotten some of the vocabulary, bu t since she had
already hammered the general outline of the story into her head, she
was able to flip through the pages with minimal difficulty. Bernard

56
had not been a bad husband in any sense that the world would ac­
knowledge. Never missing a Sunday mass, it would never have oc­
curred to him to do anything to deceive his wife. He had been brought
up as a bourgeois in a tiny village in the Landes region, and he had
never done anything to invite gossip from the people of his village. In
that French country town, where nothing was more important than
reputation, Bernard had been a model husband.
Yet, when Therese was with her husband, she felt listless. The exhaus­
tion she had felt while still on their honeymoon turned into an imper­
ceptible dust that piled up in her heart when they returned and settled
into their new life together in the village of St Clair. Especially when
the first signs that she was pregnant appeared - partly, perhaps, be­
cause it was the hottest time of the summer - she felt heavy, as though
chunks of lead had been hung on her body.
When Mitsuko had read as far as that and raised her head, the
father sitting opposite her quickly shifted his gaze. Outside the win­
dow cracks of blue sky had finally appeared, and the brown roofs of
farmhouses, pastures where cattle grazed and villages with church
buildings passed one after another before her eyes.
Suddenly she wondered what her husband was doing at that mo­
ment in Paris. But she felt no longing for him. Mitsuko stared at her
own rather grim face reflected in the window glass and at her large
eyes, and could feel almost painfully how Therese had felt. In the past
I was Moi"ra; now I am Therese. In the innermost part of her brain,
someone's voice - the voices of her past boy-friends - sang that re­
frain. Mitsuko fel t that, unlike other women, she was unable truly to
love another person. A dried-out woman, as arid as the sands. A woman
in whom the flames of love had been extinguished.
Just what is it you want? Mitsuko inwardly flung the question at
the girl in the same compartment who continued to stare quizzically
at her. But it was also the question Mitsuko was posing at herself. Just
u·hat is it you're searching for?
One night's stay in Bordeaux. The next morning she had the hotel
make her a sandwich, and following the directions given her by the
assistant at the reception desk, she boarded the bus for Langan. She
took the bus because she had learned, by leafing through the pam­
phlet provided her by the hotel employee, that the train mentioned in
the novel that had run to the village of St Symphorien where Therese
lived had long ago been done away with, and that a bus now covered
the route.

57
 Langon, where the midday sun shone down on the deserted roadway.
'So there's no longer a train?' she tried asking a middle-aged woman
waiting for the bus.
'A train?' The woman shrugged her shoulders. 'Many years ago
there was a rail line for goods trains loaded with pine timber, but it
never carried any passengers.'
Mitsuko realized that the train in the novel that had trans­
ported Therese into the forest of darkness had been Mauriac's
invention. I f that were the case, then There se had not passed
through a n actual forest in the dark, but had i n fact travelled
through the darkness in the depths of the human heart. So that
was it.
So that was it! At this realization, Mitsuko knew that she had left
her husband in Paris and come to this rustic area in order to search
out the darkness in her own heart.
The bus continued to speed down the road surrounded by a dense
pine forest. In the forest giant ferns spread out everywhere like um­
brellas, and pines queued up like people in a crowd.
Sometimes in summer when cloudless days proceeded one a fter
another without a break in this forest, parched branches would rub
against one another and start a mountain fire, the smoke from
which would smudge the white disc of the sun. The occasional
ramshackle huts in the forest were the spots where men who had
come to hunt turtle-doves would spend the night. Even though this
was the first time Mitsuko had laid eyes on the scenery in the Landes
region, she knew all about such things from her reading of Therese
Desqueyroux.
In the village square at St Symphorien, which was as barren as a
desert, Mitsuko got off the bus with several other people. When she
walked into the combination restaurant-hotel in the square, the young
people who had been playing a game in the lobby stared at this Japa­
nese woman with timorous eyes. It was only a rare Asian who came
to visit their village, which had nothing to recommend it to the tourist.
She ordered a meal and reserved a room.
'You're Japanese, ar� you?' the aproned woman who owned the hotel
asked as she studied Mitsuko's passport. 'We had a young Japanese
staying here five years ago. Yes, I remember him well. He said he was
a student in Lyon.'
At the mention of Lyon, the name of O tsu surfaced in her con­
sciousness. As she fitted her room key into the lock and opened the

58
door, she had the impish thought that perhaps she should go on to
Lyon before returning to Paris.
She broke into a sweat as she walked around the village in the still­
hot evening sun. Therese and Bernard, their arms linked like the most
genteel of engaged couples, had passed through this square, and in
the church near the square they had been married. A life filled with
resignation and weariness. Her upright husband, whose very exist­
ence had enervated her. From society's perspective, there was no point
on which this man could be criticized. Because he was blameless, Therese
grew irritated both with him and with herself. This irritation collected
below the level of her conscious mind, waiting quietly for the moment
when it would finally burst into flames like the forest of umbrella
pines.
That night, after the occasional sounds of motor-cycle engines had
faded away, came the night in St Symphorien which the author had
described as like 'the silence at the ends of the earth'. Lying on the
bed in her dimly lit room, Mitsuko opened her eyes wide and stared
at the ceiling, asking herself: What do you really want? Why have you
come by yourself to such a place?
She reached for the telephone and dialled the hotel in Paris. Not that
she had suddenly wanted to hear Yano's voice. But because in the
darkness of Landes she had suddenly become frightened that her
thoughts were becoming too much like those of Therese. Hadn't she
married Yano in order to fill the emptiness within herself? Hadn't it
been so she could bury herself in some human-like life among his
friends who could talk of nothing but their work and their golf? They
had tried several times at the hotel to put the call through, but there
was no answer. Evidently her husband had not yet returned from his
explorations of Paris.

Therese boarded a train that did not exist in reality and entered into
the darkness of her own heart. Mitsuko, too, concluded her pointless
journey to Landes, where she had been unable to discover anything,
and headed for Lyon.
She arrived at Lyon at 2 p.m. and took a room in a hotel facing the
place Bellecour. She had an assistant at the reception desk check to see
if the religious order that had run their university operated a religious
congrega tion in Lyon. It was almost disappointing how easily the
address and telephone number were located. The moustached assist­
ant pointed at a map of the city and showed her a section called

59
Fourviere in the oldest part of Lyon. Mitsuko knew at once that this
was the novitiate she wanted, since it belonged to the same religious
order.
When she dialled the telephone number, a man's voice kept repeat­
ing, 'Otsu? Otsu?' When he finally caught on, he raised his voice and
said, 'Oh, you mean Augustine O tsu.' She was kept waiting a long
while, until finally the unforgettably forlorn voice of Otsu came through
the receiver. The moment she heard his voice, she remembered his
'
round face and his breath that smelled of curry.
'It's me. Na-ru-se.' She purposely kept a cheerful tone in her voice,
but Otsu said nothing for a few moments.
'Mr O tsu, I'm in France. With my husband. And I've just arrived
here in Lyon by myself. I'm at the Hotel Bellecour.'
'Really?'
'Really. I heard a rumour that you were in Lyon, so I thought I'd
try to ring you, and it's turned out to be true. I hope I'm not bothering
you?'
'No.'
'I understand you're going to become a priest.'
Silence again. He was lost for an answer. She could almost see the
jittery look on his face, and Mitsuko purposely poured sweetness into
her voice.
'I suppose that means you couldn't see a woman like me?'
'No, that's not the case.'
'I'm thinking of going back to Paris tomorrow. What about tonight?'
'Sorry. I can't at night. But tomorrow morning I'm going to the
Catholic university on the rue du Plat. The class finishes at eleven,
and then I'll come to your hotel.'
'Do you know it?'
'Yes. It's a famous hotel in Lyon.'
After she had hung up, Mitsuko took a walk along the River Saone,
guidebook in hand. The waters of the river were black, and waterfowl
soared above the cargo-laden boats. Next, she went to see the ancient
Roman theatre that had been restored on a hill in Fourviere. Perhaps
because the bluff at �ourviere was the oldest part of Lyon, houses
with peeling walls stood here and there like mouths plagued with
cavities. Atop the hill she stood on a set of stone steps that afforded a
panorama of the city. She had a panoramic view of the grey city of
Lyon, which squatted like a cloudy sky. Although she had had no
plans to come here, now that she suddenly found herself in Lyon, it

60
seemed to her a pitiful city, lacking any of the vitality of Paris.
She climbed down the stairs and went in search of the novitiate
where Otsu lived. The building, like all the houses in Fourviere, was
old, shadowy and blotched by the winds and snows. As she stood
examining the building two or three seminarians, sporting berets and
the kinds of gowns that high-school students had worn before the
war, came out of the doorway and walked down the hill. To her, they
looked like members of some incomprehensible alien race, and O tsu
was now living among those aliens.
The following morning at around eleven-thirty Otsu called at
her hotel as he had promised. When the reception desk contacted
her and she went down to the lobby, Mitsuko discovered O tsu,
standing apart from the well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, wearing a
beret like the two seminarians the previous night, and draped in a
black, tattered monk's robe. Looking as always like a stray dog that
has just crawled from a ditch, O tsu seemed out of place in the hotel
lobby.
'It's been a long time,' Mitsuko said in greeting.
Otsu managed a timid grin and uttered his trade mark, 'Sorry.'
'The way you're dressed . . . you've really changed.'
'You too, Miss Naruse . . . . Sorry, your name is different now, isn't
it?'
'It's Yano now, but that sort of thing doesn't matter. Can we go
outside? Or are you theology students prohibited from walking with
women?'
'It's fine. I explained the situation to the rector.'
They cut across the place Bellecour and walked along the banks of
the dark, stagnant Saone. Again today the river was gloomy, and a
cargo ship slowly chugged towards the north.
'I shouldn't say this, but Lyon certainly seems lifeless compared
with Paris.'
'That's what all the Parisians say. They claim we're old-fashioned.'
'Will you be staying here for a long while?'
'I have two more years until I graduate. But being the kind of per­
son I am, I don' t know whether I'll even be able to finish.'
They leaned against a fence on the river bank and wa tched the
cargo ships and waterfowl. Both Mitsuko and Otsu avoided mention­
ing their past association. Otsu, looking like a pitiful soldier beneath
his stained beret. Many years before, this face had sought her breasts
like an infant.

61
 'Back in our school-days we once forced you to drink a lot of sake,
didn't we?'
Otsu said nothing.
'Didn't you . . . abandon your God then?' She thrust her fingers into
Otsu's old wound. Her maliciousness ignited on contact with Otsu's
cowardly face. 'So why is it that you became a student at the sem­
inary?'
Blinking, Otsu looked down into the black current of the River Saone.
On the surface of the water soap-like bubbles had formed and flowed
along.
'I don't know. It just happened.'
'I want to know the reason.'
'After you snubbed me . . . I began to understand . . . just a little the
sufferings of that man who was rejected by all men.'
'Now hold on . . . . Don't just gloss over this whole thing.' Mitsuko
was hurt. But that only strengthened her desire to drive Otsu into a
comer.
'Sorry. But that's really how it was. It was because of something I
heard. After you broke up with me, I fell to pieces . . . . I didn't know
where to go or what to do. I couldn't think of anything else, so I went
back to the Kultur Heim again, and as I was kneeling there, I heard it.'
'Heard it? Heard what?'
'A voice, saying "Come to me. Come. I was rejected as you have
been. So I will never abandon you." That's what the voice said.'
'Who was it?'
'I don' t know. But I do know for certain that the voice told me to
come.'
'And what did you do?'
'I answered, "I come."'
She recalled the Kultur Heim that afternoon as the sun streamed
through the window. At the foot of the stairs the chimes of the clock
rang out. There had been that scrawny man hanging beside the de­
serted altar, and the words printed on the page of the Bible someone
had left at the pew. The words that had said, 'he hath no form nor
comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we
should desire him'. ·
'Well then, Mr O tsu, I suppose that means that it's thanks to me
that you've become a seminarian.'
Mitsuko smiled. But she sensed something squirming within her
forced smile.

62
 'That's true.' A delighted smile illumina ted O tsu's cheeks for the
first time. 'After everything that happened to me, I began to think
that God, like a magician, can turn any situa tion to the best
advantage. Even our weaknesses and our sins. Yes, that's how it is.
A magician puts a wretched sparrow in a box, closes the lid, and
then with a wave of his hands opens the lid again. The sparrow in
the box has been changed into a pure-white dove and comes flying
out.'
'And you're that wretched sparrow.'
'Yes. I who was once so pitiful. . . . If you hadn't dumped me . . . I . . .
would not be living this kind of life.'
'How you exaggerate things. You try to come up with such pro­
found meaning when all that happened is that you were jilted by a
woman.'
'Sorry. But in my case, that's what actually occurred.'
Otsu' s face in profile was turned towards the brown-chimneyed old
roofs. From among the clusters of houses the black steeple of the Church
of St-Jean-Ap6tre, one of Lyon's famous a ttractions, towered like a
giant. She couldn't bring herself to think that O tsu was rationalizing
for his past just because he was a sore loser. But since she did not
believe in this God of his, she had to conclude that his reminiscences
were nothing more than a desperate attempt to make some sense of
his experience. All that she was able to understand was that this mis­
erable fellow had entered a realm completely alien to the world in
which she, her friends from the past, and her husband and his associ­
ates now lived.
'You really are a strange one, aren't you?'
'Maybe I am. But . . . I didn't change myself. I was transformed by
the conjurings of God.'
'Listen, could you please stop using that word "God"? It makes me
nervous, I can't relate to it, and it doesn't mean anything to me. Ever
since I was in college, I've felt distant from that word "God" which
the foreign priests used.'
'Sorry. If you don't like that word, we can change it to another
name. We can call him Tomato, or even Onion if you prefer.'
'All right, then, just what is this Onion to you? You said at school
that you really didn't understand him very well. When someone asked
you whether God existed.'
'Sorry. To be honest, at tha t time I really didn' t know. But now in
my own way I do.'

63
 'Tell me.'
'God is not so much an existence as a force. This Onion is an entity
that performs the labours of love.'
'That's even more repulsive. How can you use such unsettling words
as "love" with a straight face? And what do you mean by "labours"?'
'Well, for instance, the Onion found me abandoned in one place,
and at some time he gave me life in a completely different location.'
Mitsuko chortled. 'That hasn't got anything to do with the power of
your Onion. Your feelings just sent you off in th� t direction.'
'No, that's not true. It was the work of the Onion transcending my
own will.' For the first time O tsu spoke decisively, and he lifted his
eyes to look her directly in the face. He was different from the some­
how ineffectual fellow she had known, whose only redeeming feature
was his goodness.
Mitsuko changed the subject. 'How long do you plan to keep me
standing here? It's already well past noon. Since I made this trip all
the way to Lyon, let's have lunch somewhere.'
'Sorry. Since I study at the seminary, I don't know any good places.'
'I know that. I'll treat you. And I won't make you guzzle alcohol
this time.'
A look of innocent delight crossed his face, like that of a dog being
led out for a walk.
They returned to the place Bellecour, where Mitsuko had noticed
from her hotel window a convenient restaurant on a corner of the
square marked by a statue of Louis XIV. Their table was surrounded
by mirrored walls of vermilion colour, and the table-napkins had been
arranged like tiny pyramids. The waiters looked on from a distance in
bewilderment as the Japanese seminarian dressed in a stained robe
seated himself.
Dotting his threadbare robe with drops of soup as he ate, Otsu heaved
a sigh. 'This is delicious. How many years has it been since I've eaten
something as good as this?'
'You would've been better off not choosing your present way of
life. There are any number of restaurants in Tokyo now that serve
food as good as this. J!xcuse me for asking, but is it the work of that
Onion of yours that drove you into this kind of life?'
Otsu gripped his spoon like a child and grinned.
'You're a strange man. You're Japanese, aren't you? It makes my
teeth stand on edge just to think of you as a Japanese believing in this
European Christianity nonsense.'

64
 'You haven't changed at all, have you, Miss Naruse?'
'I haven't, but I'm serious.'
'I don't believe in European Christianity. I. . . .' Another drop of soup
spattered his frock. Clutching his spoon, O tsu pleaded with Mitsuko
like a little child. 'Miss Naruse, now that you've come to France . . .
haven' t you felt any sense of friction?'
'Friction? I've only been here ten days, you know.'
'I've been here three years. For three years I've lived here, and I've
tired of the way people here think. The ways of thinking that they've
kneaded with their own hands and fashioned to meet the workings of
their hearts . . . they're ponderous to an Asian like me. I can't blend in
with them. And so . . . every day is hell for me. When I try to tell some
of my French classmates or teachers how I feel, they admonish me
and say that the truth knows no distinction between Europe and Asia.
They say it's all because of my neurosis or my complex or whatever.
My views about the Onion, too . . . .'
'You're as uncouth as ever. Here you are having a lovely meal with
a beautiful woman, and you can't talk about anything less tedious?'
'Sorry. But . . . I haven' t seen you in so long. . . . It's like I want to tell
you all the feelings that have been pent up inside me for three years.'
'Then go ahead and talk. Tell me all you want about your Onion.'
'I can't make the clear distinction that these people make between
good and evil. I think that evil lurks within good, a nd tha t good
things can lie hidden wi thin evil as well. That's the very reason God
can wield his magic. He made use even of my sins and turned me
towards salvation.'
Clenching his knife and fork with both hands, O tsu jabbered as
though possessed . The look on his face was the same as those on
the faces of the young people who had participated in the student
riots, conducting pointless debates in the local taverns. How
foolish Mitsuko and her friends had thought those students were in
their school-days.
'But my way of thinking is considered heretical in the Church. I've
been reprimanded. You don't make distinctions between anything, they
insist. You don't discriminate clearly. That's not how God is. That's
not what your Onion is like, they tell me.'
'Then why don't you just chuck the whole bothersome business?'
'It's not that simple.'
'You've got to do something besides just talk: You must also eat.
The waiter's having fits because he can't bring the next course.'

65
 'Sorry.' Otsu obediently chewed away, grinning childishly back at
Mitsuko, who studied him closely.
'This onion soup . . . it's delicious!'
She wondered if she would have been happy married to this man,
or if she would be more bored than she was with Yano.
'Another thing is, I trust my Onion. It's more than just faith.'
'Are you sure . . . you're not going to get excommunicated?' she teased.
'They still excommunicate people, don't they?'
'My priesthood order says I have some hereticaf tendencies, but they
haven't kicked me out yet. But I can't lie to myself, and when I fi­
nally go back to Japan . . .' - he sucked the spoon into his mouth as
though he were going to swallow i t - ' . . . I want to think about a
form of Christianity that suits the Japanese mind.'
'I understand. But please hurry up and finish your meal.'
Actually, Mitsuko was fed up with his endless oration. It was like
being forced to listen to a parochial piece of music. This man, who
was throwing his life away for a useless hallucination. A world too
distant from her own. What Mitsuko did understand was the ineffa­
ble weariness and muted hatred that the wife in Therese Desqueyroux
had felt towards her estimable husband. She would tuck that weari­
ness and hatred in the deepest part of her heart and carry on her life
at Yano's side, though he reminded her so much of Bernard.
When they left the restaurant, she followed the French custom and
shook Otsu's hand. 'Goodbye. I hope I'll see you again in Japan.'
'Thank you for the delicious meal.' Otsu nodded. 'And sorry.'
'Don't get yourself excommunicated, Mr Otsu,' Mitsuko joked. 'Do
your best to get a little more adept at living.'
When she arrived in Paris that evening, Mitsuko hopped into a taxi
at the railway station and gave the driver the name of her hotel, feel­
ing as though she had returned home from a long journey. It seemed
as though she had spent many years familiarizing herself with the
banks of the Seine, where the street lights blurred over; with the Ca­
thedral of Notre-Dame that soared up in its own illumination; with the
black, gloomy Conciergerie.
'Now that you've come to France . . . haven't you felt any sense of
friction?' Otsu's complaint was suddenly rekindled in her mind, but
the reply she now mumbled to herself - 'I don't feel any friction at
all. I wish I didn' t have to go back to Japan' - was so loud that the
taxi-driver, who clenched the butt of a cigarette in his mouth, turned
round and looked at her.

66
 She returned to the hotel, but Yano, as she had expected, was
out. She bathed and did her make-up, waiting for his return. She
climbed into bed and began watching television, but at some point
the weariness of her solitary journey caught up with her and she fell
asleep.
She awoke at the sound of the door opening. Yano came in smelling
of alcohol.
'You're back? I would have been here if you'd let me know when
you were coming back.'
'I'm sorry. You'll have to forgive me for being so self-indulgent on
our honeymoon.'
'Did you have a good time?'
'Yes. I went across to Lyon after Bordeaux. The Church of St-Jean­
Ap6tre in Lyon and the ancient Roman theatre were splendid.' One
after another she purposely listed places she knew would not arouse
her husband's interest. 'I was able to see Les Landes. There's nothing
but a pine forest and a pathetic village, so I know you wouldn't have
wanted to spend more than an hour there. And how about you?'
'Mr Takabayashi from M. Limited showed me around.'
"'Paris for Men Only"?'
'I don't know about that. Montmartre and the Lido . . . well, they
weren' t as interesting as I'd imagined. Takabayashi had a good laugh
at our expense. He said he didn't know too many other newly-weds
who behaved like us.'
Despite his remark, Yano didn't seem particularly displeased. Rather
than being dragged by his wife to museums he was unprepared for,
or to concerts he couldn't apprecia te, this simple-minded man had
had a far better time enjoying 'Paris for Men Only' with other Japa­
nese.
Even so, that night he devoured Mitsuko's body like a pig wallow­
ing in the food in its sty. The expression on a man's face when he is
making love to a woman - from Mitsuko's experience - looks exactly
the same from one man to the next. The bloodshot eyes and heavy
panting. Only Mitsuko kept her wits about her. Unable to give herself
over to the intoxication of passion, she wondered if she were a woman
intrinsically incapable of loving another person. But what was love?
Otsu had said that his Onion was an entity of unbounded gentleness
and love, but. . . .
Strangely, the image that was awakened in her mind at this mo­
ment was O tsu, walking across the place Bellecour in his seedy robe

67
and huge lace-up boots. Otsu, oblivious to her feelings, blabbering on
about his Onion. He was as tedious as her husband, who could talk
of nothing but golf and new car models, but he was the complete
antithesis of Yano and her friends from college.
Just what the hell is it I want? It was the only thought that filled her
mind throughout her honeymoon.

68
 F OU R

The Case of Numada

The sale of duty-free items began on the JAL flight bound for Delhi,
and the stewardesses, whose faces until then had been those of prim
demoiselles, suddenly took on the look of department-store assistants
as they began selling liquor and tobacco from their carts. Nurnada
thought he might buy some perfume for the wife he had left at horne,
but having no idea what kind she might prefer, he turned to Isobe in
the neighbouring seat.
'Do you know anything about perfume?'
'Perfume?' Isobe grimaced. 'I'm afraid I don't.'
'I've left my wife a t horne, and I'm off to see India all by my­
self. . . . I thought I'd spend a little conscience money on her.'
'Oh, so it's a gift for your wife? That's very nice. Maybe if you
asked the stewardess.'
'Are you going to buy something for your wife, Mr Isobe?'
'My wife is dead.'
'I'm sorry. I didn't realize.'
The stewardess asked how old Nurnada's wife was, then recom­
mended a product called Ambassador. With a businesslike smile she
asked, 'Will you be paying in yen or in dollars?'
Feeling diffident towards Isobe, Nurnada quietly placed the bottle

69
of perfume in his carrier-bag. Isobe had closed his eyes and was doz­
ing. In the seats behind them a honeymoon couple, the Sanjos, were
snatching up items on offer in voices that betrayed their indifference
to those around them.
'You're buying two bottles of brandy?'
'They said it was hard to get liquor in India.'
'Then I'm throwing in some perfume, too.'
A stewardess spoke to Numada. 'Might you, by any chance, be the
'
Mr Numada who writes children's stories?'
Numada nodded in silent embarrassment.
'I studied children's literature in college. I read several of your
stories.'
'What I write . . . it's actually not children's fiction. It's really stories
with dogs and birds as the main characters.'
'I just love cats.'
Isobe listened to this conversation with his eyes closed. If his wife
were still alive, he thought, he would certainly not be going to some­
where like India.

Numada spent the days of his youth in Dalian, Manchuria, which

at that time had been colonized by the Japanese. The Dalian he re­
membered was filled with the smells of the Russians who had occu­
pied the land before Japan. The streets were lined with brick homes
and buildings, which were rare in Japan, and the roadways radiated
from their centre in the city square. Acacia and poplar trees, found in
Japan only in Hokkaido, lined the streets, and the Japanese, brimming
with the vulgarity and the high-handedness of the parvenu, strolled
these streets disdainful of the Chinese who had lived here for count­
less years.
Even to the eyes of a child like Numada, the district where the Chi­
nese lived seemed squalid and pitiful. When his father and mother
took him to the Chinese market-place, it reeked of the distinctive odour
of garlic, and pigs' heads and plucked chickens hung in many a shop.
Most mornings, Chinese women and children carrying baskets would
come peddling to the homes of the Japanese. Quail squawked and
scratched around inside "some of their baskets, while others held brightly
hued melons or water-melons. Women and children hauled these heavy
panniers from door to door, the poles biting into their shoulders. Japa­
nese housewives haggled and bartered as though it were expected,
then finally made their purchases.

70
 Numada's mother hired one of those Chinese children as a house­
boy. The Japanese in Dalian lived in Russian-style houses with chim­
neys, and on occasion they would take in Chinese children to help
with housework and errands.
The boy hired in the Numada house was a fifteen-year-old youth
named Li. He spoke broken Japanese, and with clumsy hands he helped
Numada's mother in the kitchen, and in late autumn he began stok­
ing the stove with coal. He had a gentle personality, and he would do
his best to protect Numada, six years his junior, whenever his parents
scolded him, and if Numada was late coming home from school, he
would worry about him and come half-way to meet him.
One day on his way home from school, Numada picked up a stray
dog that was covered with mud and had dried mucus clogging the
corners of its eyes. It was a Manchurian hound with jet-black hair
and a purple tongue, but it was so filthy his mother ordered him to
get rid of it. 'Just one day!' Numada pleaded, almost in tears, and
after he had Li wash the dog, he placed a wooden box filled with
straw in a corner of the recessed dirt floor of the kitchen.
Lonely that night, the puppy wailed incessantly. When Numada
went into the kitchen to pat its head, his father came out in his night­
dress and roared: 'I can't stand this noise! Get rid of him tomorrow!'
The next day, all Numada could think about during school was the
puppy. When classes were finished, he raced home. Li was chopping
firewood in the garden, and when he saw Numada, he put his finger
to his lips and motioned for Numada to come with him.
Numada followed Li to the coal-shed beside the fence. When the
puppy, which was tied up behind the blackly glistening heap of coal,
saw Numada, he frantically wagged his little tail and peed every­
where.
'Master, not tell Mother this,' Li instructed Numada, his smile a
blend of shrewdness and gentleness.
'Only Master and Li know.'
'All right.'
From that day, the coal-shed became the two boys' secret hideaway.
When he returned home from school, Numada would stealthily take
the leftovers Li had put into a can and deliver them to the dog. They
named him Blackie, and after his eyes healed and he learned to go
quietly to sleep, Li brought Blackie back to the yard and said to
Numada's mother, 'Madam, this dog come back. He not cry any more.
He OK.'

77
 She seemed aware of Li's fib, but she finally gave in to her son's
entreaties and let him keep the dog.
About a month later, they fired Li. The padlock to the coal-shed had
been opened and over half their supply of coal had disappeared. A
Japanese policeman called, and he suspected Li of the theft. Someone
reported that they had seen Li talking with other young Chinese boys
near the shed.
'In any case, ma'am, he's the only one who had free access to the
key.' The policeman noisily sipped a cup of tea at the doorway. 'You
can't trust them. No matter how docile they look, you never know
quite what plots are going through their minds.'
When Numada's father interrogated Li, the boy continued to shake
his head in denial. Numada listened from behind the door to his
father's angry accusations, and he felt as though his throat were go­
ing to close up on him as he stole glances at Li, who was making
incoherent excuses.
The upshot was that Li was kicked out of the Numada house. There
were any number of houseboys or amahs to be found in Dalian to
take his place.
On the day he left, Li carried with him only a pathetically tiny,
soiled bundle of possessions.
'Master, sayonara. Master, sayonara.' Li opened the kitchen door
and repeated over and over, 'Master, sayonara. Master, sayonara.'
Many years later, Numada could still remember Li's acquiescent
smile.

Blackie grew larger. He wagged his tail so vigorously it seemed as

though it would twist right off. He changed from a puppy into a
plump adult Manchu hound. While Numada was off playing with
his friends, the dog would wait glumly beneath an acacia tree for
them to finish. When Numada set off for school or returned home, the
dog would follow sluggishly behind him. If Numada said anything
to him - 'I hate studying. I wish they'd just get rid of all the schools'
- Blackie would peer into his face as though he were staring at some­
thing far off in the dist!lnce.
In the autumn of Numada's third year in primary school, the rela­
tionship between his parents soured and there was talk of divorce.
This was completely unexpected, unimaginable to Numada. He had
never even considered the possibility that he and his father and mother
might end up living apart from each other.

72
 At night when his father came home drunk, he would argue for
long hours with his wife in the living-room. From time to time he
could hear his father's shouts and his mother's weeping voice, and he
would pull the covers up over his head to block them out, sometimes
even stuffing his fingers in his ears so he could get to sleep.
He hated coming home from school. At home he would have to
look at his once cheerful mother, who now sat by herself in the dark,
chilly room and stared out of the window lost in thought. Even though
it was not a great distance from school to his home, Numada would
take his time along the road, walking slowly, stopping to stare at the
remains of autumn cicadas dangling from the tangled threads of spi­
ders' webs, or delaying his return home by even one more minute by
scribbling graffiti on a red brick fence with chalk. At a crossroads he
would hear a Chinese vendor selling roasted chestnuts, and carriage
mules waiting for customers along the roadside flicked their tails and
ears to chase away swarming flies. While Numada's attention was
caught up in these activities, Blacl<ie would come to a halt and scratch
his head with his leg and sniff around the wall while he waited for
his master.
'I don't want to go home.' Numada could talk only to Blackie. The
pain from home engorging his heart that he could not discuss with
his teachers or schoolmates he conveyed only to Blackie.
'I hate it! I hate it when night comes. I'm sick of hearing Dad and
Mother argue.'
Blackie stared at Numada's face, and feebly wagged his tale in be­
wilderment.
Can't be helped. That's what life's all about, Blackie would answer.
When Numada himself grew older and thought back on those days,
he was certain that Blackie had spoken to him.
'Dad says he's going to live away from Mother. Wha t am I going
to do?'
Can't be helped.
1f I live with Dad, that would hurt Mother, and if I live with Mother,
that would be a bad thing to do to Dad.'
Can't be helped. That's what life's all about.
Blackie had been the one who understood his sorrow in those days,
the only living thing who would listen to his complaints: his com­
panion.
Autumn came to an end, winter passed, and a late spring finally
came to Dalian in May. It was decided then tha t his mother would

73
return to Japan and take Numada with her. White buds the size of
young girls' earrings dangled between the leaves of the acacia trees
g
that lined the streets. Next to the pavement a carria e waited to take
mother and son to Dalian harbour. His father withdrew in silence to
an inner room and did not come out to see them off. Only Blackie
loitered in front of the mule that swished at horseflies with its tail.
When the carriage lurched forward, Numada turned round and
watched as Blackie chased after them. His eyes grew moist even though
he struggled not to cry, and he turned his face awa y so that his mother
wouldn't notice. Even after they turned a comer, Blackie continued in
pursuit. He seemed almost to know that this was the last time he
would see Nurnada. Eventually Blackie tired and came to a stop, growing
smaller in the distance while he watched with resignation in his eyes
as Numada left him. Numada as an adult had still not forgotten those
eyes of Blackie's. It was thanks to Li and to this dog that he had first
come to know the meaning of separa tion.

If I hadn't had Blackie with me then, Numada thought in later years,

I doubt I ever would have written a children's story.
Blackie was the first dog to teach him tha t animals can converse
with humans. Not just conversing - he had also learned they can be
companions who understand your sorrows. Numada, realizing that
the only way to achieve such a thing in our present day and age " as
through Miirchen, had chosen the writing of children's stories as his
life's work while he was in college. He took great pleasure writing in
his books about dogs and goats and ponies, and, yes, birds too, who
understood the sorrows of children - because the various sorrows as­
sociated with human life have already been generated in childhood.
Once after he had become a children's writer, Numada owned a
peculiar bird known as a hornbill. It would be closer to the truth to
say that he had had the bird forced on him by an old man at the local
department store who ran the pet department where freshwater fish
and songbirds were sold.
This old man was a strange one himself, with a face like a bird,
who warmed up sudde!llY to Numada when he discovered he was a
writer of children's stories, and he took it upon himself to provide
Numada with a complete tank unit filled with guppies, and turned up
uninvited to give impassioned lectures on the proper care of song­
birds.
One day he popped up on Numada's doorstep, accompanied by a

74
young man in working clothes, carrying a large furoshiki-wrapped
parcel. 'This fellow's a friend of mine. He has a shop at Shibuya
where he sells little birds and animals. He's just recently got his hands
on a hornbill. And here's what I said to him. "I know a man like Mr
Numada would want a bird like this."'
Numada couldn't fathom why he had been chosen to be the owner
of this hornbill, but the old man, oblivious to his opinions, untied the
knot to the furoshiki.
Inside the wire cage, a black bird perhaps five or six centimetres
tall clung to its perch. It had a large beak, and there was a massive
protuberance on its upper beak that resembled a rhinoceros horn. It
looked for all the world like a large-nosed pierrot.
'It was captured in Africa .' The old man nudged his friend, 'Tha t's
right, isn't it?'
'Yes, this is a bird that lives only in the tropics. He has a very
interesting face.'
'You can use this bird in your stories, sir. Because of his freakish
face.'
Why had the old man supposed that a bird as queer as this could
become the hero of one of his stories? The characters that appeared in
his little collections of tales were all everyday dogs and cats and rab­
bits and pigs that children could feel close to.
'Well, why not, after all? I'll leave it here for a week, so you can
have a go at taking care of it.' Ignoring Numada's hesitancy, the old
man and his chum left the birdcage in Numada's office and van­
ished.
Once they had gone, the room occupied only by Numada and the
hornbill suddenly grew silent. In that quiet space, the bird with the
pierrot face balanced on its perch and stared at a single space in
the void. Its face was so comical it seemed all the more doleful.
'Now, where did you come from?' Numada asked. 'Are you really
from Africa?'
Numada had never been to Africa. It was a world far too removed,
far too inaccessible in comparison with America or England, which he
had visited. Had this pierrot, born in the dense jungles of Africa, ever
imagined that he would be brought to an unfamiliar land like Japan?
Even birds, like people, had their various fates determined for them.
Numada's wife was not happy that her husband had taken in this
troublesome bird, but his children were delighted . They named the
hornbill Pierrot-chan, and every day they ogled him in his cage, but

75
in less than two weeks they tired of this and kept their distance. The
hornbill didn't sing in a charming voice like a canary, and moved
around very little in his cage. And the odour wafting from the cage
was overpowering.
'Pierrot,' Numada called to him. 'You're not getting a very warm
reception here, you know. Would you like to go back to the pet store?'
Pierrot gave no response at all, but stared like a stuffed bird at a
single point in the air, shifting his body only slightly to change posi-
'
tion.
One day Numada opened the door to the cage and let Pierrot loose,
hoping to grant a small measure of freedom to this bird from the
distant jungles of Africa. But Pierrot took a few hesitant steps, evi­
dently at a loss, and came to a stop beside the glass door. There he
stared fixedly out of the window.
Numada set about his work. Noiselessly, the hornbill continued to
stare outside. As dusk approached, the sunlight on the window began
to fade. The only sound to be heard was the dry scratching of Numada's
pen as he wrote his manuscript.
It was then he heard the unbearably plaintive cry. It was a painful
wail filled with sorrow, and it faded away like a candle-flame that
sputters and dies. The hornbill had sung out. It seemed to Numada
that Pierrot had channelled his flood of emotions into a single cry of
'I'm lonely!' For the first time, he felt a sense of affinity with this
comical Pierrot.
A new bond between Numada and Pierrot was forged that day.
During the day, Numada would cut apples into tiny pieces, and when
he tired of his work he would toss a slice to Pierrot, who perched
beside the window. Pierrot would stretch out his neck and skilfully
snatch the slice up with his large beak. This amusement frequently
brought comfort to Numada as he wrote, and it seemed almost like a
game played between congenial brothers.
At night, after his family had all gone to sleep, while Numada worked
at his desk, Pierrot would discourteously spread his wings without
any warning and fly up to the bookshelf near Numada. From the
shelf he would look down at Numada while he worked.
'So, what are you doing there, old fellow?' Pierrot asked.
'I'm writing a children's story.'
'What kind of story?'
'Sort of a free rendition of dreams I had when I was a child. In my
stories human children can talk to dogs and even to birds like you.

76
The dog in this one's named Black.ie, and Blackie and the young hero . . .'
'Boring. Those are just dreams made up to please yourself, aren't
they? Take a look at me. I've been brought from the distant forests
where my friends reside to this alien land so that I can be a source of
comfort to you.'
'Maybe that's true. But you have no idea how much comfort birds
like you and dogs have brought me since I was a child. Even to­
night . . . having you here in the room with me . . . it helps.'
Numada didn't know how to explain his yearning for a connection
with every living thing. The seed that Blackie had planted inside
Numada in his childhood had slowly sprouted to create an idealized
world that he could describe only in his children's stories. In his
stories, a young man could understand the whisperings of flowers,
the conversations exchanged between trees, and could even decode the
signals that bees and ants sent to their respective fellow-insects. A
solitary dog and a single hombill had a share in the loneliness that he
as an adult could not dispel on his own . . . .
But Pierrot, as if in disregard of his sentimentality, flapped his wings
on the shelf and headed off for another corner of the room. When
Numada got around to looking in his direction, Pierrot was sleeping
with one leg lifted and the feathers on his head pricked up.
'I can't stand the way it messes up your room. And it does its
business right on the floor.' Numada's wife frequently complained
about the way Numada let the hornbill have free run of his study.
Most of their marital tiffs centred on the bird. Just as his wife said,
even though Nurnada opened the window often, his room still smelled
of the peculiar odour of a bird, and the black carpet was dotted here
and there with Pierrot's white droppings. There was no question that
this bird with the odd face was as big an annoyance and nuisance to
Numada's wife, who had to tend to the house, as Jesus had been to
the rabbis of his day.
It is a strange metaphor to compare such a bird with Jesus, but
Numada had his reasons for doing so. Numada had taken a liking to
Rouault's paintings, and there was something about the many Pierrot
faces he portrayed in his works that resembled this hornbill. He knew
that for Rouault clowns were a symbol of Christ. There was no reason
to expect that his wife could understand the spiritual exchanges that
took place between Numada, as he worked late into the night, and
this bird, which studied his every move. Over the course of his mar­
riage, Numada had realized that in every companionship there re-

77
mains a mutually insoluble loneliness. But in the stillness of night,
his own loneliness and the loneliness of the bird came into contact
with one another.
Two months passed. The old man from the pet store who brought
the bird over never appeared again. Maybe he and his friend had
imported the bird and then ran into problems when they couldn't sell
it. If that were the case, something in Numada's feelings drew him
towards the bird for that reason, also.
Numada started to complain of low-grade fevers in the afternoons,
and he began to feel an indescribable heaviness in his body. The
doctor in the neighbourhood who examined him said he could hear a
rustle in Numada's chest, and while he was taking him over to the X­
ray room, he asked in a roundabout way, 'I don't suppose you've
ever had any problems with tuberculosis?' The results of the X-rays
were bleak, as the doctor had suspected. At the university hospital,
where his publisher arranged for Numada to undergo further tests, he
was immediately ordered in for a year of treatment.
Numada and his wife were confused and perplexed at this unex­
pected calamity. He had in fact contracted tuberculosis as a young
man, and at the time had received pneumothorax treatment, which
was the only available therapy, but the pulmonary cavities that he
had thought were healed had at some point suffered a relapse.
His wife began making various preparations before his hospitaliza­
tion, and said to him with a sober look: 'Listen . . . what are we going
to do about that bird after you go into the hospital? There's no way I
can take care of it myself. Please have the pet-store owner take it
back.'
What she said made sense. 'All right, I will,' he said, nodding.
He went back into his study and let Pierrot out of his cage. As
always, Pierrot walked over to the window and stared at the Tanzawa
mountain range, bathed the colour of wine in the evening sun.
'Sayonara.' His hands thrust into his pockets, Numada looked down
at the bird and muttered. Suddenly he thought of the day in his youth
when he had said 'Sayonara' to Blackie. Then, too, incontestable cir­
cumstances had forced him and Blackie apart. And now once again
an unforeseen situati a"n was obliging him to part with Pierrot, who
had brought such consolation to his nights.

Numada ended up spending not just one year but two in the hospi­
tal. During that time recently developed antibiotics had some effect,

78
and he went under the surgeon's knife. The two operations failed,
however, because the pleurae that had undergone pneumothorax treat­
ment many years before had fused together, and he ended up with
pneumonia and pleural effusion. Neither the physician in charge, who
made his regular rounds, nor the professors at the university hospital,
who turned up once a week with young interns in tow, said anything
to Numada. But he could tell from the expressions on their faces that
they were at a loss how to treat him.
To Numada, it was distasteful to consider staying alive another ten
or fifteen years bereft of the ability to do anything. Numada and
the other patients on his floor knew of a patient down the hall with
pleural effusion upon whom surgery had failed, rendering him a living
corpse.
'I'd like you to go ahead and operate,' Numada pleaded with the
attending physician, but the cloudy reply was 'Well, we're consider­
ing that, but. . . .' If they stripped the pleurae that had fused together
even more after his two most recent operations, the doctors feared that
Numada might run the risk of massive haemorrhaging.
While these deliberations were going on, Numada would often climb
by himself to the roof of the hospital and stare at the sun setting in
the west. He realized as he stood there that he had adopted the same
pose as the hornbill. When he was released from his cage, the bird
would peer from the study window at the wine-coloured Tanzawa
range and the sun setting on Mount Oyama. Numada had come to
understand to a painful degree just how Pierrot had felt.
He wondered how the bird was doing. He wished he could have
spent his nights in his hospital room with the bird. He was tired of
feigning vitality in the presence of the doctors and nurses and his
wife, and as in the past it was the bird, and not another human being,
that he craved for a companion with whom he could share his feel­
ings. He wanted the kind of miserable, foolish Pierrot that Rouault
had drawn . . . .
But he couldn't bring himself to express these feelings to his wife.
He couldn't heap an additional burden on her, for she came to visit
him between taking care of the children and looking after the house.
Then one day while he was reading the newspaper, he showed a
photograph of some migratory birds to her and casually muttered,
'I wonder where my hornbill is these days?'
She said nothing at the time, but three or four days later she ap­
peared in his room carrying a large furoshiki parcel.

79
 'Here, this is for you.' There was affected enthusiasm in her voice
as her husband stared curiously at the parcel. 'Please open it up.'
He untied the knot, and under the cloth wrapping found a square
wooden cage with a myna bird as black as lacquer frantically flap­
ping its wings inside.
'Dear.' Numada was moved by his wife's thoughtfulness.
'You haven't got your hornbill any more, so try to keep going with
this myna.'
'I didn't mean you to do something like this when I made that
remark.'
'It's all right. You wanted it, didn' t you? I could tell as much.'
Numada felt guilty towards his wife. Ever since he was a child, he
had confessed the secrets of his heart to dogs and birds instead of to
other humans. This time, his wife had managed to discern somewhere
in his heart the desire to confess his despondency over the string of
failed operations to a bird like the hornbill.
At the same time, he felt that it was better like this. Even if he did
tell his wife of his inconsolable suffering, all it would do would be to
cause her distress. It would bring her pain to no purpose, and serve
merely to heap more burdens upon her. But if he told all to a bird . . .
it would silently take it all in.
'Are you feeling a little cheerier now?' his wife asked exultantly.
'This is the first time in a long while I've seen a happy look on your
face.'
The chime signalling the end of visiting hours rang, and as she
picked up her bag and started out of the room she winked at him.
Inside its cage, the myna bird leaped back and forth between its
two perches without showing any signs of boredom, but it never once
sang. It seemed as though the bird-store owner had not yet taught i t
t o say even 'good morning' o r 'hello'.
But after he had finished supper and it was almost time to go to
sleep, Numada heard a strange voice call 'Ha ha!' from inside the
birdcage. It was the bird's first song.
'Ha ha!' was not this bird's native song. After he thought about it
for a moment, Numada realized it was the sound of laughter.
·
Had it been placed next to another myna that spoke in human vo­
cabulary, but picked up only the laughing voices of the store-owners?
When Numada woke up in the middle of the night, he would qui­
etly lift the furoshiki from the cage that hung above his bed. The myna
sat with both legs poised on its perch and stared back at Numada. Its

80
eyes were just like those of the hornbill tha t had balanced on his
bookcase and watched the movements of his pen.
'I wonder if I'm going to get better? My pleurae are fused together,
and if I have another operation . . . .' Numada spoke to the bird the
words he could not say to his wife. 'If I have another operation, I'm
sure to haemorrhage a lot. The doctors are afraid of that. But I can't
stand the thought of spending the rest of my life in bed. I want to
have that operation, no matter what. You understand how I feel, don't
you?'
The myna cocked its head a bit and leaped from perch to perch.
And then, mimicking a human voice, it laughed, 'Ha ha!'
Each evening, he divulged his agony and his regrets to the bird.
Just as he had complained of his loneliness as a child to Blackie.
'I don't want to cause my wife any more distress. You're the only
one I can talk to this way . . . . I'm scared of dying. I want to live and
write even better stories. I'm worried, if I die, how my wife and chil­
dren will live . . . . What should I do?'
'What should I do?' - the echo of those words seemed so theatrical
that Numada was embarrassed. But that was how he honestly felt.
'Ha ha! Ha h a ! ' The myna chortled. The laugh seemed at once to
mock his cowardice and to offer encouragement.
Numada turned out the light in his room and felt that the only real
conversations he had had in his life had been with dogs and birds.
He didn' t know anything about God, but if God was someone hu­
mans could talk to from the heart, then for him tha t was, by turns,
Blackie, the hornbill and this myna.
His third operation, a gamble of sorts, was performed in December.
On a morning when the steam heat in his room spewed out louder
than usual, Numada was given an anaesthetic and a nurse wheeled
his stretcher down the long corridor towards the operating-theatre. When
they bring me back down here, Numada thought as he stared at the
astral lamps on the ceiling, will I still be alive?
He was brought back to his room after four hours of surgery, but it
wasn't until the following morning tha t he awoke from the anaes­
thetic. A rubber tube had been stuck into his nose and an IV needle
had been inserted into his arm. From time to time a nurse came in to
test the half-conscious man's blood pressure and give him a shot of
morphine. Everything was as it had been after his second operation.
Several days later, when he finally regained consciousness, he asked
his wife, who had remained at his side, 'How's the myna?'

81
 She was at a loss for an answer. 'I was so busy taking care of you,
I left it on the roof of the hospital and forgot all about it. By the time
I realized and went up to look . . . it was dead.'
There was no point in blaming his wife. She couldn't have been
expected to look after the myna on the roof when she had to devote all
her attention to caring for her husband, who hovered between life and
death.
'I'm sorry.'
'
Numada nodded, but he wanted at least to see the cage.
'The cage.' He tried to sound unconcerned to avoid hurting her feel­
ings. 'The nurses might get upset if you just left it sitting up there.'
Til throw it away tonight.'
'It'd be a shame to throw it away. I like that cage. Once I get better,
maybe I'll get a sparrow or something.'
To continue the conversation was too suffocating for him, and the
wound on his punctured chest was aching. He said no more.
That evening, his wife went up to the roof and brought the birdcage
to his room.
'Put it there.'
'It's filthy. Let me wrap it in something.'
'No. Leave it like that.'
His wife went to the nurses' station. Left alone in his room, Numada
was able to study the cage carefully. The myna's brownish-white drop­
pings had encrusted the perches and the floor of the cage. Two black
feathers had stuck to the droppings. As he looked at the feathers, he
was struck forcefully with the realization that the bird that had lis­
tened each night to his grumblings and his pain had died. Suddenly
Numada remembered crying to the myna, 'What should I do?'
I wonder if it died in place of me?
A feeling very close to certainty boiled up like hot water from his
lacerated chest. He realized how much of a support dogs and birds
and other living creatures had been to him throughout his life.
Numada's recovery after surgery, the source of such profound con­
cern to his doctors, was nearly miraculous. When he passed the test
for pleural effusion, t�e doctor in charge shook Numada's hand and
said, 'You're a lucky man. I'm very relieved. I can tell you this now,
but. . . .'
'I know,' Numada nodded. 'It was a fifty-fifty gamble, wasn't it?
The potential for danger was very high, and you and the other doctors
weren't sure what to do.'

82
 To tell you the truth . . . while you were on the operating-table . . .
your heart stopped for a time.'
Projected against Numada's eyelids at that moment were a myna
bird laughing 'Ha ha!' and a hornbill peering down at him from the
bookshelf with a mocking glare.

83
 F I VE

The Case of Kiguchi

Kiguchi was impressed that their guide, Enami, who sat in the seat
beside him, was able to fall asleep as soon as the plane lifted off from
Narita Airport, and with the way he dived into his meal the moment it
was brought round. Enami put his fork down and looked over at Kiguchi.
'You don't eat meat, eh?'
'It must be my age. I can't bite it with my dentures. That's prob­
ably why I've ended up liking fish better.'
Kiguchi turned his eyes away from his plate and looked out of the
window. He could, of course, see nothing, but he wondered if the land
below was covered with jungle.
'Is that a jungle down there?'
'Let's see.' Enami glanced at his wrist-watch. 'Judging from the
time, we could be flying over Thailand now, so there's a possibility
that it's jungle. Are you interested in jungles?'
'I fought in the Burma jungle during the war.'
.
'Really? I'm afraid that's something my generation doesn't know
much about, but I understand the fighting was fierce in Burma.'
Fierce - Kiguchi smirked at the word. The retreat, the starvation, the
daily torrents of rain, their despair and exhaustion - these were things
that Enami's generation could never begin to understand. Kiguchi had

84
no desire to talk of them. All he could do was grimace when he was
asked about them.
The sea of trees pounded by the rain. Their retreat through those
trees. Malaria. Starvation. Despair.
We trudged through there like sleep-walkers heading for death.
He had heard that India also had a rainy season, but he had no
sense of what it was like. But Japanese soldiers such as himself had
experienced the rainy season in Burma, to the east of India, down to
the marrow in their bones. The rainy season had arrived while his
unit was on the retreat from Mount Papa to Sinzwe, pursued by Brit­
ish and Indian troops.
Suddenly - and 'suddenly' was the only way to describe it - one
morning in May, the temperature had dropped precipitously. Humidity
choked the air. The sky, which had been clear the previous day, was
covered with steel-grey clouds. The rainy season had begun. There­
after, rain fell each day, the initial drizzle turning into a downpour.
The downpour was quite unlike the rainy season in Japan. The bon­
net of bluish-black leaves from the sea of trees echoed with a deafen­
ing crash, and water poured between them like a waterfall.
The unit to which Kiguchi and Tsukada belonged walked from the
east side of the Pegu Yoma towards the west. No; they hadn't walked.
They had desperately dragged their legs along from a determination
to stay alive.
By then every member of the unit was suffering from malnutrition.
Over half the men had contracted malaria. Their doctor, Ohashi, had
warned the men not to drink the water, since cholera had reached
epidemic stages in the flatlands, but many of the soldiers consistently
found blood in their stools, whether from dysentery or malaria they
couldn't tell.
It had been three days since they had put anything resembling food
into their mouths, and that had been some mangoes from a grove
they stumbled across on the outskirts of a tiny village. They skinned
the hard, green mangoes and sliced the white fruit into tiny pieces
and salted them before they ate them. The taste reminded the soldiers
of the pickled vegetables they had eaten almost daily in Japan. Dr
Ohashi made the rounds of the men, who moved their hands and
mouths like ravenous demons, and warned them, There may be cy­
anide in them. Be careful!' Even so, they gobbled the fruit down.
As a result, many of the soldiers developed stomach-aches. One,
then another would peel off from the unit and disappear into the sea

85
of trees to cope with their diarrhoea. Their stools were black in colour
and smelled dreadful. Some fell over where they had crouched to re­
lieve themselves, unable to move any more. When the senior soldiers
barked at them, in lifeless voices they pleaded, 'I can't walk. Please let
me die here.' Eventually these pleading voices could be heard throughout
the jungle.
Occasionally the rain would stop. And for a brief time the clouds
would clear away. Tiny birds would begin to sing here and there.
Between their cheerful, chirping voices, human moans of 'Let me die
here' echoed to the right and the left.
The columns of Japanese soldiers seemed less like a retreating force
of fighting men than the night-time rout of a detachment of phan­
toms. Even when they encountered an officer hobbling along with a
cane hand-made from a pine branch as he struggled to keep up with
his unit, the soldiers would pass him with empty eyes, pretending
they could not even see him. Their weapons, presented to them on
behalf of the Emperor as objects more precious than their own lives,
were discarded along with their swords, and many of the men carried
nothing more than mess-kits and hand-grenades at their waists. The
mess-kits contained the 'Firefly Gruel' they would sip that day, a kind
of porridge made from jungle weeds with a few grains of rice floating
in it. Hand-grenades were their ultimate weapons, to be used to take
their own lives when they no longer had the strength to move. In fact,
from time to time the jungle ahead of and behind them shook from
the sudden roar of an exploding grenade. These were the sounds of
men taking their own lives. Even at those sounds the surviving
soldiers, who walked like somnambulists dressed in tatters, registered
no change in the expressions on their faces.
After Kiguchi was repatriated to Japan, he never wanted to remem­
ber that hell again. He didn't want to talk to anyone about it. Even
had he chosen to discuss it, there was no reason why the women and
children who had remained in Japan could comprehend it. Those who
were drafted and indolently welcomed the conclusion of the war at
bases far from harm's way could not begin to grasp it. The only ones
who could truly und�rstand what they had been through were their
comrades who had passed through the sea of trees and hobbled with
them along the road that the soldiers would later call the 'Highway of
Death'. Tsukada was the valued war comrade who had journeyed
through that inferno with Kiguchi.
As they dragged their legs along in utter exhaustion, they lost track

86
of whether they were dreaming or awake. Kiguchi had seen an exact
replica of himself walking alongside him.
'Walk! You must keep walking!' His double, or perhaps the Kiguchi
who was about to collapse physically, had bellowed at him. 'Walk!
Keep walking!'
Even after he returned home alive, Kiguchi could not bring himself
to believe that this had been an apparition. He was certain that his
exact duplicate had stood at his side, berating him.
When they entered the Highway of Death, Kiguchi and Tsukada
had their first glimpse of a terrifying spectacle. The corpses of Japa­
nese soldiers lay piled in heaps on both sides of the road . Maggots
swarmed around the noses and lips of the dead, and even of the
soldiers who were still faintly breathing, and from the right they heard
some men cry 'Kill me!' The same voices echoed from the left. All
called out 'Kill me', as though they were a chorus singing sotto voce.
But none would come to their aid. In spite of the grisly scene, when
the rains stopped, the birds chirped happily away. All Kiguchi and
his comrades could do was avert their eyes and mutter 'Sorry, sorry'
to themselves.
Then suddenly a soldier, his ribs poking through his skin, sat up
and shouted, as though it were his final howl, That bastard Muta­
guchi!' Mutaguchi was the commanding officer of the Japanese Army
in Burma, the man who had ordered every division to participate in
this reckless operation. He was the officer who had sent notice to each
soldier declaring: This battle is the ultimate duty of our soldiers. Every
one of you is to believe firmly in inevitable victory, and you are to
attack the enemy with all your might, even if you are the last soldier
left alive.'

They finally made their way to the slope of a valley where they
found three or four houses, but the residents had all fled. The soldiers
desperately searched the houses one by one for food, but could find
nothing to put into their mouths. The units that had already passed
this way had rummaged through everything.
In a small hut a sick soldier abandoned by his unit waited, barely
breathing, for death. The blanket coiled around his body hinted at the
feverish chills of malaria that tormented him. He leaned against the
wall of the hut, peering languidly at Kiguchi and Tsukada, then closed
his eyes. He no longer had the energy to speak.
'Did they leave you here?' Kiguchi approached the man and asked.

87
 The soldier nodded almost imperceptibly. But he seemed to have
resigned himself to everything - even to death - and sought no as­
sistance. No doubt he would use up the last reserves of energy in his
body tonight or tomorrow and breathe his last.
In the ertd . . . this is what'll happen to me. Kiguchi was thinking more
of his own pathetic situation than expressing his pity for this soldier.
Such feelings rallied what remained of his own energy.
'You've got to hold on. I'm sure help will come.' Tsukada spoke the
conscience-salving words and fled from the hut with Kiguchi. It was
pitch-black on the other side of the doorway, and they could hear no
response from the ailing soldier.
It was the following day that Kiguchi was besieged by what he
had feared when he saw that dying soldier in the hut.
That evening, Kiguchi felt indescribable waves of chills wash over
his spine. Soon every one of his joints felt as though they had come
unhinged, and he could no longer keep up with the ranks of com­
panies that continued to stream past.
'Tsukada.' With no shame or self-respect left to him, Kiguchi called
feebly to the comrade who had come to his side. 'I've got malaria. I
can't walk. You go on.'
Tsukada said something, but Kiguchi could not make it out. I'm
going to die like this, he thought, his conscious mind blurring as he lay
on the ground. Later, drops of rain began to fall on his cheeks through
gaps in the tree leaves, and when he opened his eyes at the sensation,
what he saw was the grizzled, sunken-cheeked face of Tsukada, his
neck gaunt and his Adam's apple protruding.
'You stayed here with me?' Kiguchi asked as his voice choked with
tears. He and Tsukada had been comrades in arms since the machine­
gun corps had been organized at Akyab a year before.
'Yeah.'
'And our company?'
'They've gone on ahead. The orders from the company commander
are for us to meet them at the River Kun as soon as you're able to
walk.'
'I . . . I can't do it.'
'Eat this.' His mess-kit contained the paltry mixture of rice and weeds
they called 'Firefly Gruel'.
'Where did this rice come from?'
'A fallen soldier had it,' Tsukada answered. 'This is the last of it.'
'You're not giving it to the owner?'

88
 'I don't think he has the energy to eat. Don' t think about it. You
sleep, and eat what I find for you.'
Kiguchi nodded and closed his eyes, which were clogged with tears
and dried mucus. During this retreat, in which every one of the Japa­
nese soldiers suffered from hunger and disease and weariness, there
was nothing unusual about a soldier abandoning a debilitated com­
rade, even if it was his friend. If he did not abandon the other, there
was no guarantee for his own life. But Tsukada did not abandon his
friend Kiguchi.
In his ebbing consciousness, Kiguchi heard faint explosions from
British reconnaissance planes and the massive pounding of the Japa­
nese 92-mm heavy artillery guns. He had the impression that the fighting
was continuing somewhere in the distance, but perhaps his ears were
playing tricks on him.
When birds began shrieking in the trees near dawn, Kiguchi awoke
trembling throughout his body from fever. Tsukada was nowhere to
be seen.
So he's left me, has he?
Later, when he reflected on it, it seemed strange to him, but his
mind at that time was oddly at peace, and he felt neither resentment
nor anger, since abandonment was a law of nature in these circum­
stances. Just as a wounded bird or insect would die quietly in this
jungle, he too would expire here, and disin tegrate and return to the
earth: that was how he felt.
The cry of a bird, overflowing with life. As he listened to it, he
closed his eyes. This was how everything would come to an end. He
heard the sound of footsteps crunching dry leaves, then approaching
him. It was Tsukada.
'Ah!' Kiguchi began to weep. 'I thought you'd . . . gone to join the
company.'
'Eat this.' Tsukada took a chunk of something black from his mess­
kit and brought it to Kiguchi's lips with a pair of chopsticks. 'It's
meat.'
'Meat? You found some meat?'
'Last night I went down from this valley and found a village. It
was deserted, but there was one dead cow. We can still eat. I cooked
it, so there's nothing to worry about.'
'Thank you.' But Kiguchi was so weak that, even though the 'Fire­
fly Gruel' would slip down his throat, he was unable to swallow the
decaying meat.

89
 'If you don't eat . . . you'll die!' Tsukada snarled, forcing the tiny
morsel into his mouth. 'You must make yourself eat.' But Kiguchi,
unable to bear the smell, coughed it up again.

Even now Kiguchi didn' t like to think back on that ghastly rout.
After his repatriation, he almost never spoke to anyone about his war
experiences.
Once back in Japan, however, after resuming ,his life with his wife
and children, every now and then he would be driven to distraction
by the emotions that came flooding back. His parents' house in a hot­
springs resort area near Nagano City had been fortunate enough to
escape the air raids, and his family had been evacuated there, but
when his children complained that all they had to eat then was rice
mixed with other grains, or that they hadn't been able to get any
sweet meats, he responded with violence excessive for a father. His
wife, who knew only the gentle man he had once been, could merely
look on with stupefaction at the change in him. When this happened,
being the sort of man he was, he would go back to his room, pull the
covers over his head, and moan and weep. He could see before his
eyes the Highway of Death piled deep with corpses, and the still­
living soldiers with maggots swarming over their noses and mouths.
From the very depths of his heart he abhorred the 'Democracy' and
'Peace Movements' in post-war Japan that passed judgement on every­
thing without regard for any of that suffering.
Three years after the defeat, Kiguchi finally returned to Tokyo. He
started up a small freight company, and business progressed smoothly
thanks to the boom in the munitions industry during the Korean war.
Around the time Tokyo began to look like a real city again, Kiguchi
noticed one day that a man on the subway platform was staring
curiously at him. It was his friend Tsukada. When they recognized
each other, they cried out like animals and rushed towards one
another.
That night, Kiguchi made the rounds of the bars with Tsukada. At
a grilled chicken shop Tsukada related, in the southern dialect he had
picked up somewhe(e along the way, that he had moved in wHh his
wife's family in Uto in Kyushu and now worked for the national
railways, and that he had come up to Tokyo on business. The two
men talked about all manner of things, but they never mentioned the
Highway of Death. Kiguchi was painfully aware of the feelings that
led Tsukada to avoid the topic.

90
 'Are you sure you can handle all this liquor?' Kiguchi began to feel
a little uneasy at the way Tsukada gulped down his sake. As he con­
tinued to drink, the light in his eyes gradually darkened and he lapsed
into silence. He poured one glass of liquor after another down his
throat, as though he were trying to force something back. Kiguchi felt
he could understand what his friend was going through.
'Would you like me to help you horne?' he asked, but Tsukada
shook his head, and after they left the shop, he disappeared into the
nearly deserted Shibuya Station.
That was their first meeting since the war, and several more years
passed. Some ten years later, Tsukada wrote to Kiguchi to ask if he
could find him a job in Tokyo. In the latter he wrote: 'I'm asking you
to help me, as one who shared the pleasures and pains of that High­
way with you in the past.' Those words made Kiguchi a bit uneasy,
for he sensed in them Tsukada's attempt to remind him of how he
had fed the stricken Kiguchi 'Firefly Gruel' and brought him meat.
But he put in a word with an acquaintance, and secured Tsukada a
position as the manager of an apartment building.
Tsukada carne to Tokyo with his wife, and Kiguchi went to meet
them on the platform at Tokyo Station. Tsukada's wife stood behind
her husband and bowed over and over again to Kiguchi.
'Listen,' Tsukada explained to his wife, 'I was a seasoned soldier -
I'd joined up six months before Kiguchi here. In the army, there's a
difference in status between a trained soldier and a new recruit, even
if in age they're only a month apart.' Kiguchi could sense the feelings
of inferiority that drove Tsukada to speak with such deliberate haugh­
tiness, and he courteously told her, 'Your husband . . . did a lot for me
on the battlefield.' She continued to display her gratitude with inces­
sant bowing.
Since Tsukada was the kind of man who performed his assigned
duties faithfully, just as he had while on military service, Kiguchi
was given no reason to be ashamed for having introduced him to the
friend who owned the building.
'The only problem,' Kiguchi's friend said, smiling sardonically, 'is
that he gets a bit carried away bellowing at deliveryrnen who don't
obey the parking rules, and at pushy salesmen.'
Kiguchi apologized, acknowledging that this had been Tsukada's
nature ever since he had known him in the army.
'He takes things too seriously,' his friend replied, smiling. 'Men
who are too serious are the first to break.'

91
 Men who are too serious are the first to break. A year after moving to
Tokyo, Tsukada vomited blood.
Tm so sorry. He had too much to drink again last night.' Tsukada's
wife, who telephoned Kiguchi with the news, apologized falteringly.
'He told me I wasn't to let you know . . . but they took him to the
hospital in an ambulance.'
'The hospital? Which hospital?'
Kiguchi had invited Tsukada out for drinks a couple of times since
his arrival in Tokyo. Both times he had spoken some words of caution
to Tsukada for his somehow maniacal way of drinking, but Tsukada
had said: 'Since the war, I haven't been able to make my way around
the world like you have. If I don't drink, I can't stay in good spirits.
You understand, don't you?' With an answer like that, Kiguchi could
say nothing, having shared that grotesque hell with his friend.
He raced over to the hospital, where Tsukada's wife was waiting
for him by the elevator. Her husband, she reported, had been placed
in the intensive care unit and was now sleeping. He had vomited up a
tremendous amount of blood and fainted in their bathroom.
She seemed to fear stomach cancer more than anything, so Kiguchi
consoled her, 'It's blood that he's coughed up from his stomach. With
cancer, you don't bring up so much blood.' He then went to talk to the
middle-aged doctor who was handling Tsukada's case.
In a comer of the hallway, the doctor reported in a soft voice: 'He's
not in any condition for us to run any tests yet. But in the digital
examination we found a lump on the right side of his abdomen. It
·
may be the oesophageal varices that accompany cirrhosis. His wife
says he's been drinking a lot of sake.'
'Yes.' Kiguchi decided to divulge everything to this homely fellow.
'He seems to be drinking like an alcoholic.'
'Is there any sort of psychological reason why he feels he has to
drink?'
'Psychological?'
'Well, for instance . . . . ' The doctor looked at the chart in his hands.
'Any contention at home, or problems at work?'
'I don't think ther�'s anything like that.'
'If his drinking has any psychological foundation, then to cure him
of his dependency, I think we ought to have him talk to a psychol­
ogist at the same time we work on his physical condition.'
'Would you like me to talk to him about it? We were the best of
friends during the war.'

92
 'Ah, wartime friends, were you?'
As he walked back down the corridor, Kiguchi concluded that the
impressions he had vaguely felt were true after all. But he had no idea
what it was that was clouding Tsukada's eyes and making him drown
in alcohol. As he started towards the intensive care ward to talk to
Tsukada's wife, he passed a short young foreigner wearing glasses
who was pushing an old man in a wheelchair towards the eleva tor.
The young foreigner's abominable Japanese was making the old man
laugh. His face was as long as that of a horse, and he reminded Kiguchi
of the silent film comedian he had seen as a young man - the actor
named Femandel.

When Kiguchi visited the hospital again five days later, Tsukada
had just been moved from intensive care to a regular ward. He was
lying in a bed beside a sunny window in the large ward and had
opened his threadbare pyjama top so his wife could wipe his back.
His collar-bone poked out, and Kiguchi thought he had lost a lot of
weight. What he had heard was true: a person with cirrhosis seems to
lose weight right before your eyes.
'Kiguchi. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry.' As he sat cross-legged, Tsukada
put his hands on his knees and bowed his head again and again. 'To
think I'd turn out like this after all you've done for me . . . . But, hell,
after a month in the hospital, I'll be all right. The doctor said my
liver's not too good, but I feel fine, just fine.'
'You've got to stop drinking once you're out of here,' Kiguchi said
with a stern face. 'Your illness is the result of too much drink. You
can't have even one more drop.'
'I can't give it up. If you take my liquor away from me, my life
won't be worth living.'
'You heard what the doctor told you. If you keep on drinking, it'll
kill you.'
It was evident that Tsukada's mood was souring even as they spoke.
He crossly pushed away his wife's hands as she wiped his shoulders
and sullenly growled, That's enough!' Then he turned away and pulled
the covers half-way over his face.
His wife reproached him. 'You're being rude. He's made an effort to
come and visit you.' But Tsukada would not answer.
Just then, the horse-faced foreigner entered the ward. Like the doc­
tors, he had on a white frock-coat, but he also wore a blue apron.
'Hey, Mr Gaston, you look busy today,' one of the patients in the

93
ward called out. The young foreigner with the peculiar name replied,
'Ye-es. Busy. Much work I have. Two hands, not enough.' He spread
his arms flamboyantly.
One of his assigned tasks was to dishibute the meals from the kitchen
to the patients. Each meal was different, depending upon the condi­
tion of the patients.
'Mr Tsuka . . . Tsukada,' Gaston read, glancing at the romanized name
on the tray card and stopping in front of Tsukada's bed. 'Mr Tsukada,
this for you.' Then, with a truly amiable smile, he handed the tray
containing gruel and soup to Tsukada's wife. 'I bringing tea soon.'
As he started out of the ward, a patient yelled out, 'Don' t fall down,
Mr Gaston. You're so clumsy.'

'I hear you ordered your wife to sneak in some sake for you. Of
course you know what the doLtor said.'
Tsukada had turned his face away at Kiguchi's sermon, and he
stubbornly refused to respond.
'If you continue drinking like this, these growths on your blood
vessels that they call oesophageal varices will rupture. And they say
that will kill you. I know this is hard for you, but you simply must
give up drinking.'
Tsukada, who maintained his ill-humoured silence, finally answered
in near desperation, 'Leave me alone . . . . I don't care if I die!'
'What are you saying? If that's how you feel, then what was the
point of surviving the war?'
'You don't understand anything.'
'You mean, the reason you can't stop drinking? Is there some reason
why you've got to have alcohol? If there is, then tell me.'
'Enough.' Tsukada turned back to the wall and said nothing more.
Kiguchi gave up and left the ward to report the conversation to the
attending physician.
'He's a stubborn s.o.b. But there seems to be some reason for his
drinking that he can't bring himself to talk about.'
'So there is something.'
'How is he doing?' .
'Just as I feared, we found oesophageal varices. It's very likely he'll
have another massive haemorrhage sometime in the future.'
'If he haemorrhages, will he die?'
'I can't rule out that possibility.'
Kiguchi stared gloomily at the window of the examination-room.

94
When he thought of his comrades who had died along the Highway
of Death and been consumed by maggots, he couldn't help feeling
that his own life and that of Tsukada now were nothing more than a
bonus tacked on to their span of years. Yet, the reason he had sur­
vived was that his wartime friend, Tsukada, had not deserted him
when his own strength had sapped. He wanted to do whatever it took
to save Tsukada.
He visited Tsukada once or twice every week. Sometimes the volun­
teer Gaston was there, chatting with Tsukada in his broken Japanese.
He learned that Gaston taught at the Berlitz Language School in Shibuya,
and tha t on his days off he came to work at the hospital. There was
something engaging about the man, and many patients felt close to
him because he was so clumsy that he seemed to have n o co-ordina­
tion whatever. Even Tsukada reserved his only smiles for Gaston.
'Mr Gaston seems to be the only person at this hospital my hus­
band likes,' Tsukada's wife confided as though she were relaying
some dark secret. 'All he does is complain about the other doctors and
nurses. Says he can't stand them.'
'The young fellow is fantastic,' Tsukada told Kiguchi. 'He may be a
foreigner, but he doesn't turn his nose up at taking care of our bed­
pans and the like. I thought maybe he did this as a side job to pick
up some money, but the nurses tell me he doesn't make a single yen
here.'
'He's a volunteer.'
'It's amazing what he does.'
Kiguchi first realized the affection that Tsukada had developed for
Gaston one day when he was visiting.
'I asked Gaston if he'd come to Japan because he'd lost his job, and
he couldn't come up with an answer. And then the fellow makes this
strange gesture before he eats the sweetmeats I offer him.'
'There's nothing unusual about tha t. It's called crossing yourself,
and it's something all the Amen types do.'
'I'm feeling so much better, I think it's about time I returned home.'
'If you just go home and start drinking again, you're better off
staying here. I don't think they'll discharge you unless you'll promise
to lay off the booze.'
'That's not for somebody else to decide. I'm getting out of here no
matter what anyone says.'
'And start drinking again? Even if your old comrade begs you not
to?'

95
 Once again Tsukada turned his face to the wall and would not talk.
Kiguchi stared at his thinning back for a long while, then muttered,
'I'm going.' A bitter resignation welled up within, and he felt some­
how forlorn. He stood up, and just as he was about to go, a muted
voice behind him called, 'Wait. Kiguchi, I'm sorry. Don't be angry
with me.'
'I'm not angry. But I must keep badgering you because I'm worried
about your health.'
'The way I drink . . . the way I drink . . . I want to tell you the
reason.'
When Kiguchi sat down beside him, tears began to flow from
Tsukada's feeble eyes and down his hollow cheeks.
'Tell me.'
'When we . . . when we were running from the British and Indian
troops, and you couldn't go any further, I decided I had to take you
back to our unit with me.'
'I've always been grateful for that. I've never forgotten it for a
single day. That's why I look on this as an attempt to pay you back.'
'You were so weak, and I wanted to bring you something to eat, but
there wasn't anything. Not knowing what else to do, I prized a little
rice from the hands of a dying soldier and made some gruel.'
'I remember that. You never abandoned me.'
'On the second day I was starving myself, and I realized I'd end
up like you if I couldn't get something to eat. I walked around, kick­
ing over corpses teeming with maggots, to see if I could find some­
thing to eat. But . . . I couldn't find anything. Away in the distance . . .
I heard an explosion, and I hurried on and ran into the jungle. The
moment I set foot in there, I heard the wings of flies flapping like a
torrent. Half the leg of a soldier, covered with mud and still wrapped
in its puttees, was lying there on the ground. You remember that many
of the abandoned soldiers killed themselves with grenades, and this
leg had flown off by itself.'
For some reason, he avoided the crux of what he felt compelled to
relate, and instead slowly jabbered on and on about scenes Kiguchi
knew all too well and_ did not wish to recall. From the corridor they
could hear the bright, laughing voices of some nurses. Tsukada stared
at the ceiling with hollow eyes, and his mouth seemed to be the only
part of his body moving.
'There was a hut.'
Painfully, Kiguchi recalled the scattered huts of Indians and Bur-

96
mese that they encountered as they escaped along the Highway. In
these huts, with their raised floors and staircases of rotting wood,
enervated Japanese soldiers leaned against the walls, dropped their
heads and squatted in their own excrement as they awaited death.
Kiguchi waited for Tsukada to say what he wanted to say. He could
feel the torment in Tsukada's heart as he approached the core of his
pain and then quickly retreated from it. He began to have some no­
tion of what it was Tsukada wanted to say but couldn't.
'I heard the flapping of flies' wings again, and the walls plastered
with grasses were covered with enormous flies. You remember how
much bigger the Burmese flies were than the ones in Japan?'
'It's all right,' Kiguchi finally forced himself to say. 'It's all right. If
it's painful for you to tell me, you don't have to say any more.'
'I'll tell you.'
Kiguchi shut his eyes and endured Tsukada's suffering along with
him.
'I rested awhile in that hut. I even dozed off for a bit. I woke up
when I heard a noise, and two soldiers carne in. I'd never seen either
of them before. I asked them if they had anything to eat, and they
laughed, saying there was nothing left this late in the game. Then one
of them mumbled something about being able to buy lizard meat
from the Burmese for ten yen. I gave them ten yen, and they went out
of the hut.'
Kiguchi vividly recalled wha t had happened then. The voice of
Tsukada shouting 'If you don't eat . . . you'll die!' even carne back to
him as distinctly as he had expected .
'I was so weak, my stomach wouldn't take it in.'
'You gagged on it and couldn't eat it. You didn't eat it. But I did. I
reckoned we'd both die there if I didn' t eat it.'
A cloud of anxiety spread through Kiguchi's mind like the black
smoke spewing from an erupting volcano.
'The meat I ate . . . it was PFC Minarnikawa. . . . You remember him,
don't you - Minarnikawa?'
The face of the soldier named Minarnikawa, who had been in the
same company as theirs, surfaced from the depths of Kiguchi's memory.
The frames of his glasses were broken, so he had fastened them to his
ears with string. He had been drafted out of college and had a young
wife he had married just before going into the army. He had shown
Tsukada and Kiguchi some of her letters.
'How do you know the meat was . . . from Minarnikawa?'

97
 'The paper the meat was wrapped in was one of those letters from
his wife that he always carried around.'
'But you ate it thinking it was lizard meat.'
Kiguchi could sense how powerless were his own words of consola­
tion. They merely shrivelled and flapped in the breeze.
'When I got back to Japan, I sent his family that grimy piece of
stationery. I thought it would be the least sort of apology I could
make. Two months later, his wife came to visit me in Uto with a little
child.'
'She came to Uto?'
'Yeah. The child was a boy. His wife said he was born after
Minamikawa died . . . . The kid stared at me with eyes just like
Minamikawa's.'
Kiguchi could say nothing.
'You remember, don't you, those mousy eyes of Minamikawa's?
He'd look out from behind those glasses strung from his ears, always
nervously checking out the looks on the faces of the older soldiers.
The kid looked at me with exactly the same eyes.'
Kiguchi remained silent.
'I still can't forget those eyes. It's as if . . . as if Minamikawa will go
on looking at me with those eyes for the rest of my life. I can never
get away from those eyes unless I drink myself blind.'
As he spoke, he stuffed a towel into his mouth and sobbed. The
hand that Kiguchi placed on his shoulder trembled. The neighbouring
bed was empty, but perhaps some of the other patients could hear
Tsukada's weeping. Through tearful eyes Kiguchi could see through
the window three crows flying in triangular formation against the
grey sky. The crows seemed to Kiguchi to symbolize some profound
meaning in life.

Perhaps because his agitation that day had been so severe, that
evening Tsukada passed a bloody stool. With blood appearing, it was
now dear that he was haemorrhaging from somewhere in his oesoph­
agus or stomach.
He was given an endoscope examination several days later. Tsukada's
wife telephoned Kigucni with the disheartening results. They . . . they
don't know where the haemorrhaging is coming from. The doctors are
at a loss.'
The bleeding, though intermittent, continued. Kiguchi felt as though
his own demands for a confession from Tsukada had been the cause,

98
and he found as many free moments from work as he could to visit
the hospital.
Often the foreign volunteer Gaston would be sitting at Tsukada's
bedside.
'Mr Tsukada tell me about rock,' Gaston gleefully announced one
day.
'About rock?'
'Mr Tsukada go to river and look for rock. Rock shaped like Fuji­
san.'
'I told him about landscape rocks. Although I don't suppose there's
any way a foreigner can understand something as cultured as land­
scape rocks.'
Kiguchi was relieved at Tsukada's answer, for he seemed not to feel
uneasy about his own condition. In any case, at some point in time
Tsukada and this horse-faced foreigner had become fast friends.
'But there's one thing about this young fellow I really can't stand.'
Tsukada harangued Gaston in his typically haughty tone. 'He says he
honestly believes there's a God.'
'Yes.'
'Where is he, then? If he's there, show him to me.'
'Ye-es. Inside Mr Tsukada.'
'In my heart, you mean?'
'Ye-es.'
'I don't get it. How can anybody today claim anything so foolish?
Why, we've got rockets flying to the moon!'
Gaston shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He seemed to have real­
ized, from the kind of food he was delivering on the trays, that Tsukada's
condition was not good. His meals, which had been moving towards
normal food for a time, had changed back to a liquid diet again.
Kiguchi sensed that Gaston, mocked and made a fool of as he was,
brought a meagre sort of comfort to the patients. About the degree of
comfort afforded by the wan winter sun trickling through the clouds.
Still, each day Gaston brought temporary d iversion to the many suf­
fering patients here. At this hospital, he performed the role of the pierrot
in a circus.
Tsukada finally stopped haemorrhaging and the worried faces around
him relaxed. Kiguchi confided only a portion of Tsukada's confession
to the doctor in charge. He did not mention Minamikawa's name, and
hinted only vaguely that Tsukada had eaten the flesh of an enemy
soldier.

99
 'I see. So you were in Burma with Mr Tsukada, were you? It must
have been terrible. I was just a child evacuated to the provinces at the
time, but even in Japan we had a shortage of food.'
'That doesn't even begin to compare with what we went through!'
Kiguchi retorted with unintentional anger. He had heard from family
members, and experienced them himself after repatriation, of the des­
perate shortages of food in Japan, but these bore no comparison to
those of the Japanese soldiers who had wandered along the Highway
of Death like sleep-walkers, drenched by the rain. Their starvation,
after they had eaten tree bark and insects dug from the ground, after
they had eaten everything, was of a totally different realm from those
who received a ration, however paltry, of rice.
Keenly aware of the difference between his own generation and that
of this doctor, Kiguchi concluded that neither this man nor any of the
doctors in the psychotherapy ward of this hospital could comprehend
Tsukada's suffering.
'I think it would be best if we didn't provoke Tsukada any more.'
'What do you mean, provoke?'
'I don't think i t's good to make him talk about the secrets he's
buried in his heart. I think it's what caused him to haemorrhage this
last time.'
'That may be true. We'll just have to watch him and see how he
does for a while.'
'Since he's not drinking while he's here, I think all you have to do
is turn that into a good habit for him.'
The doctor, twirling his ballpoint pen between his fingers, nodded
as if he understood. Oesophageal varices were, after all, a disease for
which there was no treatment.
The event they feared finally occurred. It was Saturday when Tsukada
coughed up a huge amount of blood for the second time. When Kiguchi
got the urgent message and raced to the hospital, the doctors had
stopped his vomiting and moved him from the ward to a private room.
Nurses busily scurried in and out of the room, and the atmosphere
was taut as a bowstring all the way out into the hallway.
A balloon-like tube had been inserted into his throat, and he moaned
in pain. Stains from the blood he had regurgitated still splotched the
floor here and there.
'Gaston's the one who picked him up. There was blood all over
Gaston's clothes. Gaston . . . .' In her state of distress, Tsukada's wife
kept repeating trivial information to Kiguchi.

1 00
 'He's stabilized for now/ the head doctor, who stood wearily at the
door of the room, whispered to Kiguchi. 'But this is the crisis point.'
Five days later the bleeding was finally stanched and the balloon
tube was removed from his throat.
Tsukada seemed to sense the approach of death.
'I've really done nothing but cause you one headache after another/
he said with more feeling than he had previously displayed. 'I'm so
sorry.'
He said some things privately to his wife. Kiguchi could hear her
whimpering as he stood in the hallway. Patients passing Tsukada's
room on their way to the bathroom glared uneasily at the hypodermic
syringes and the oxygen tank.
'My husband wants you to send for Gaston/ his wife told Kiguchi
when she emerged from the room with a tear-stained faced. 'He keeps
asking for him.'
'For Gaston?'
'Yes.'
Evidently Gaston was teaching a class at the Berlitz Language School
that day, since he had not appeared at the hospital.
'Where's Gaston?' Tsukada repeatedly asked Kiguchi. 'I want to
ask Gaston something.'
It was past six, after the patients had finished eating supper, when
Gaston finally got the message and appeared. An air of tension still
filled the room and the hallway. Gaston got pemtission from the nurses'
station and hesitantly opened the door to Tsukada's room.
'Mr Tsukada. I pray. I pray.'
'Gaston. I . . . during the war . . . I d id something horrible. It hurts
me to remember it. Very much.'
'Is OK. OK.'
'No matter how horrible?'
'Ye-es.'
'Gaston. I . . . during the war . . .' Tsukada gasped for breath, and in
a strained voice he continued, ' . . . in Burma, I ate the flesh of a dead
soldier. There was nothing to eat. I had to do it to stay alive. Someone
who's fallen that far into the hell of starvation - would your God
forgive even someone like that?'
Tsukada's wife, who had been staring at the floor as she listened to
her husband's confession, said softly, 'Darling. Darling . . . you've suf­
fered for so long.' She already knew her husband's secret.
Gaston closed his eyes and said nothing. He looked almost like a

101
monk engaged in solitary prayer. When he opened his eyes again,
there was a stern look on his comical horse face that Kiguchi had
never seen before.
'Mr Tsukada. You are not only one to eat human flesh.'
Kiguchi and Tsukada's wife listened in astonishment to the stum­
bling Japanese words that came from Gaston's mouth.
'Mr Tsukada. Four years, maybe five years ago, did you hear news
that an airplane is broken and falls into Andes mountains? Airplane
hit mountain, and many people hurt. Andes mountains is cold. On
sixth day before help comes, nothing is left to eat.'
Kiguchi remembered seeing in a newspaper or on television that an
Argentine plane had crashed in the Andes four or five years earlier.
He had seen a photograph of the search party beside a form that
resembled an aircraft but so blurred it looked like a reflection in a
pool of water, along with several men and women who had survived
the crash.
'A man was in that airplane. Like you, he very much likes to drink,
and in plane he only gets drunk and sleeps. When plane has accident
in Andes mountains, drunk man hits back and chest, is much badly
hurt.'
In his broken Japanese, Gaston related the following story.
The drunken man said to the survivors who had cared for him over
the course of three days: 'You have nothing left to eat, do you? After I
die, you must eat the flesh of my body. You must eat it whether you
want to or not. Help will surely come.'
Kiguchi vaguely remembered this part of the story as well. The
survivors, who were rescued on the seventy-second day, openly con­
fessed what they had done. They had miraculously survived because
they had consumed the flesh of those who had already died.
'Those who passed away encouraged us to do so,' one of the sur­
vivors related. This news had struck Kiguchi, who had roamed and
fled through the jungles of Burma, so close at hand and so vividly
that it remained in the depths of his consciousness even now.
'When these people come back from Andes alive, everyone very
happy. Families of dead people also very happy. No one angry with
them for eating people's flesh. The wife of drunk man say, he did a
good thing for first time. People from his town always say bad things
about him, but they stop saying. They believe he has gone to heaven.'
Gaston exhausted every word he knew in Japanese to comfort
Tsukada. He came to Tsukada's room every day after that and held

1 02
the dying man's hands between his own palms, talked to him and
encouraged him. Kiguchi could not tell whether such comfort eased
Tsukada's pain. But the figure of Gaston kneeling beside his bed looked
like a bent nail, and the bent nail struggled to become one with the
contortions of Tsukada's mind, and to suffer along with Tsukada.
Two days later, Tsukada died. His face was more at peace than
anyone had imagined it could be, but a look of peace always comes at
last to the dying. 'He looks like he's sleeping,' Tsukada's wife mum­
bled, but Kiguchi couldn't help but feel that this peaceful death-mask
had been made possible because Gaston had soaked up all the
anguish in Tsukada's heart.
Gaston was nowhere to be found when Tsukada died. The nurses
had no idea where he had gone.

1 03
 SIX

The City by the River

25 October Arrive Delhi City tour

26 October p.m. Depart Delhi
Arrive Jaipur
evening Folk dancing at hotel
27 October Arrive Agra Sightseeing at Taj
Mahal and Agra Fort
28 October Depart Agra
Travel from Allahabad to Varanasl ..

That evening as they left the Allahabad airport, a humid, lukewarm

wind was blowing. The tepid wind was filled with the smell of the
earth and the vibrant aroma of trees that cities even in the provinces
of Japan had lost. The moment he inhaled that air, Kiguchi remem­
bered a small town in Bunna where he had been stationed during the
war.
Four or five taxi-drivers appeared from behind trees and came run­
ning towards the Japanese tourists. They beleaguered Enami, who spoke
Hindi, but once they found out that the Japanese had already reserved

• Varanasl was formerly called Benares

1 04
a tour bus, they spat on the ground contemptuously and scattered in
every direction.
In their place arrived a band of scrawny children who had been
watching the tourists from a distance. They held out their hands and
cried 'Bakshish!' The Japanese ignored them, having already had sev­
eral encounters with identical swarms of children as they shopped in
Delhi's old district. Enami had warned his charges that the panting
for breath and the pleading expressions and gestures were all for show,
and that once you gave money to one child, you would be endlessly
thronged by the other children. They turned away and watched out
for the arrival of their bus.
'What a wretched country.' A young man named Sanjo, an aspiring
cameraman who had come with the group on his honeymoon, grum­
bled to his bride, who had ill-humouredly covered her mouth with a
handkerchief. The adults send their children out to beg and then sit
back and just watch them do it.'
Oblivious to those around him, he took his wife's hand and began
to fondle it. Just then an antiquated bus - the kind that would long
since have been put out to pasture in Japan - pulled into the com­
pound, kicking up dust behind it.
'They expect us to ride in a bus like that?' Mrs Sanjos displeasure
showed openly on her face. That's why I insisted we should go to
Europe.'
'We can go to Europe any time. Don't you remember what Mr Higuchi
said - that India was the best, that India was the only place to take
pictures?'
Listening to this conversation being cond ucted behind him,
Kiguchi was disgusted with this young couple, who knew nothing
of the Japan charred by the flames of war. Even in Japan right
after the defeat, everywhere you looked similarly starving children
had surrounded the American soldiers and begged for chewing­
gum and chocolate. This young couple, who had no knowledge
of such hunger and such poverty, had blithely slumped against
one another and thrown their arms around each other's shoulders
in the aircraft. If any of his wartime comrades who had accom­
panied him on the miserable retreat through the Burmese jungles had
been on board, they would have punched these insolent twits in
the mouth.
The seats on the bus were so cracked they looked as if they had
contracted elephantiasis. The handle on the door had broken off, and

1 05
the Indian driver had tied it on again with a piece of string.
'This is why', Mrs Sanjo's half-weepy voice could be heard from
the rear seats, 'I said we ought to travel along the Miirchen autobahn
in Germany.'
The other Japanese contemptuously ignored her carping voice, and
the bus, bouncing up and down as it went, headed forth.
It was the hour when peasants were herding skinny cows and black
sheep back into their pens. Spice huts displayed bottles of variously
coloured spices and dried peppers hanging beneath the light of naked
electric bulbs suspended from the ceiling. They saw tailors' shops where
workers peddled away at old-fashioned sewing-machines. There was
an indescribable sadness to the evening in this provincial village, so
unlike the city of New Delhi, and the tourists gawked at the scenery
like children watching the fair at a village festival.
'Ladies and gentlemen.' Enami, sitting next to the driver, brought
the microphone to his mouth. This is a typical evening in an Indian
village. Cows are sprawled out everywhere. Beside them everyone sits
and drinks tea. The milk they pour into their tea is squeezed from
those same cows.'
This is wonderful. I haven't seen anything like this for a long time.'
From his seat directly behind Enami, Numada muttered to himself,
struck to the depths of his heart. 'In Japan in the old days you could
see animals and human beings living side by side.'
That's right, you came to India to see the animals and birds, didn't
you, Mr Numada?' Enami nodded. 'India is packed with bird sanctu­
aries and animal reserves. There's a small one along this road we're
taking.'
'How long does it take to get there? I'd appreciate some information.'
'When we get to the hotel, you should be able to get a map to the
animal reserves from the government tourist office. The sanctuaries
nearby should be listed in it. There are, after all, over four hundred of
them in India.'
'Why did you come to India to study, Mr Enami?'
'In the end, I suppose, because I fell in love with it. Some tourists
absolutely despise the place after only one visit, but then there are
those who say they want to come back over and over again. I'm one
of the latter.'
He stole a glance back at the rear seats where the Sanjos were sit­
ting, took the microphone from his mouth and whispered, 'And I'm
sure Mr and Mrs Sanjo belong to the former.'

1 06
 The evening sun, red as a winter cherry, was declining into the sky
over the village. It was time for the day gradually to give way
to twilight, and the breeze that blew in through the open windows
of the bus was no longer lukewarm but cool and smelling of trees
and soil.
Enami brought the microphone back to his mouth. 'Ladies and
gentlemen, when night falls in northern India in this season, it
suddenly turns cold. If you brought a jacket or a cardigan with
you, please put it on. In a few moments we'll be passing by the
spot where the Ganga and Yamuna* rivers meet, so please have a
good look. The confluence of two rivers is considered a sacred spot in
Hinduism, and during the Magh melli festival held between January
and February of every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims pitch their
tents and sleep along these river banks and bathe in the waters. There,
please look out of your windows. It's deserted now, but on festival
days the river banks below us are jammed with countless people.
Throngs of Hindus push and jostle their way here to bathe in the
rivers.'
'Are the rivers clean?' someone asked. It was Sanjo calling in a loud
voice, making sure everyone was aware of his presence.
'From the Japanese point of view, they couldn't be called clear­
flowing rivers in even the polite sense of the term. The Ganga is yel­
low, and the Yamuna flows grey, and when the two merge, the water
turns the colour of milky tea. But there is a difference in this country
between things that are pretty and things that are holy. Rivers are
sacred to the Indians. That's why they bathe in them.'
'So it's something like the purification ceremony in Shinto?' Sanjo
asked, once again in a shrill voice.
'No. The Shinto purification rites are for cleansing from the pollutions
of transgression and the impurities of the body. Bathing in the Gan­
ges, however, while it also has the sense of purification, is at the same
time an act of supplication for release from the cycle of transmigra­
tion and reincarnation.'
'Do they still believe in transmigration and reincarnation in this
day and age?' Sanjo squawked, oblivious to those around him. 'Do
you think these Indians really take it seriously?'
· 'Of course they're serious. Is anything wrong with that?' Enami
had ceased for a moment to act as tour guide, and the irritation in his

• The Yamuna was formerly known as the Jumma

1 07
voice was directed towards tourists like Sanjo who flippantly mock
Indian customs. Mi tsuko was favourably drawn to the earnestness
that this former exchange student suddenly displayed. No doubt it
was part of the tour guide job in which Enami worked to make a
living to listen to many questions ridiculing the beliefs of Hinduism
from Japanese tourists like Sanjo.
'Why would hundreds of thousands of people gather on the banks
of this river if they d i d n ' t take it seriously? Once we reach
Varanasl, you'll see any number of people soakil'\g their bodies and
drinking from the River Ganges, where each day the ashes of cre­
mated bodies are scattered.'
That's disgusting!' Mrs Sanjo cried out in disbelief.
There's nothing disgusting about it,' Enami snapped back. 'If you
find India disgusting, then you should have chosen a pleasant tour of
Europe. But since you're here in India, please make the effort to enter
into this unique world, a realm utterly removed from Europe or Japan.
No, that's not correct. Let me rephrase that. We're about to enter into a
unique world that we once knew but have now forgotten. That's the
attitude I'd like you to have as we travel through India. Of course,
this is just my personal opinion, but. . . . '
Until then, Enami had displayed no more than occupational affa­
bility, but once the zeal of his school-days surfaced on his face, every­
one in the bus, the Sanjos included, lapsed into silence. Enami realized
this and apologized: 'I'm sorry. I've said some impertinent things un­
becoming of a tour guide.' His charges, absorbed in their own indi­
vidual thoughts, stared silently through the windows as the bus
entered the forest, where twilight was surrendering to night.
Dim lights came on inside the bus. They appeared to be surrounded
on both sides by a dense jungle of laurel fig trees and could see no
lights or anything else. In the dim lighting the face of each passenger
was dimly reflected against the windows of the bus. From Enami's
remarks, Isobe sensed that he had at last entered into the land of
rebirth. He didn't really believe in anything like rebirth himself. But
in the very deepest parts of his ears he could hear his wife's final
delirious ravings: 'I . . . I know for sure . . . I'll be reborn somewhere in
this world. Look for me . . . find me . . . promise . . . promise!'
Isobe shifted his eyes to his own tired, elderly face reflected against
the window. The white-streaked head of hair, the splotched cheeks.
Like any other Japanese husband, he had been embarrassed to re­
spond gently to her words. He assumed that even if he hadn't an-

1 08
swered her, she would understand everything by his travelling here to
India. 'After all, that's why I joined this tour,' he muttered to himself,
and tapped the pocket of his jacket to reconfirm the presence of the
letter from America.
Mitsuko, for her part, stared without moving a muscle at the exces­
sively thick darkness outside the window. A darkness that seemed to
consist of several layers of darkness painted over yet other layers of
darkness. She thought this must be the realm of spiritual darkness
described in Buddhist thought. Had she ever seen such profound dark­
ness before? Enami had said they were 'about to enter into a unique
world'. Yes. Therese Desqueyroux had muttered much the same thing.
The night forest in Les Landes, where she had travelled by herself
after leaving her husband in Paris. Thinking of Therese, who had
journeyed into the darkness in the depths of the human heart, she had
set out to explore the impenetrable mind of a woman who had poi­
soned her own exemplary husband. And in the same way, Mitsuko
had . . . .
She thought of O tsu. At a class reunion, when everyone else had
been talking about their jobs and their children, she overheard a ru­
mour about O tsu that someone casually mentioned. A rumour that he
was living in Varanasl.
Kiguchi, watching for half an hour the forest that blocked out the
sky, concealing the moon and stars, thought of the jungles in Burma.
The jungles through which they had fled in a rout, pursued by sol­
diers from England and Gurkha troops from India.
'Mr Numada.' Enami turned round in his seat. 'It's right around
here - that area designated as a bird sanctuary. As you can see, there
is forest to both our right and left.'
They drove a bit further through the tunnel of pitch-black trees
until suddenly a single point of light appeared in the distance. Just as
those who have had brushes with near-death experiences have claimed
to see a dot of light at the end of a black tunnel, at the far end of the
darkness a brilliance like the light of a firefly gradually grew larger.
'We're just about there.' Enami shifted in his seat and put the micro­
phone to his mouth. 'I think many of you have been able to see the
lights of Varanasl in the distance.'
They pressed their faces against the windows. Three hours had passed
since they had d isembarked from their aircraft and climbed aboard
this broken-down bus. Each of the passengers was now planting
his or her feet in tha t unique realm Enami had described. Mitsuko

1 09
superimposed herself on to Therese Desqueyroux's journey into the
dark night; Kiguchi pondered his flight through the horrid jungles
of Burma; and Isobe listened in the depths of his ears to the voice of
his wife.
The tiny flicker that had looked like the light of a firefly slowly spread
its arms. An expanse of light reflected against the sky. Mitsuko realized
that at one of those points of light O tsu was living a life completely
different from her own. Why was it that thoughts of O tsu continued to
plague her, just as they had in the past? She couldn'r understand it. Otsu
dangled somewhere inside her heart like an insect carcass caught in a
spider's web. There's no reason to see him, she kept telling herself. I'm not
going to go looking for him, even if I am here in Viiriinasl.
Seated behind Mitsuko, Isobe suddenly remembered an evening he
had spent with his wife. He had come horne from work, taken a bath
and made himself comfortable before sitting down to a cup of sake
with some boiled tofu.
'When you eat Japanese food . . . you really look like you're enjoy­
ing it,' his wife had chuckled as she put a small bowl in front of him.
'It's a miracle you were able to survive alone in America.'
'I was good at English at college. I loved whisky when I was young.
But when I got older, I was converted back to Japanese sake.'
'You're a Japanese through and through, aren't you?'
'I am. If I die first, pour some sake on my grave. And it had better
be dry sake!'
That long-forgotten conversation was rekindled in his mind, accom­
panied by a stab of pain.
And now . . . at my age, here I am, unable to stand foreign food . . . and
look at me. I've come all the way to India.
He put his right hand over the pocket of his jacket, almost as though
he were confirming the presence of an indispensable passport, and
felt the second letter from the University of Virginia which he had
read and reread many times. His journey to India was entirely the
result of what had been contained in that letter. The letter was signed
by John Osis, who had sent him the first courteous reply.

If memory serves me correctly, you asked us to contact you

right away if we carne across a child who claimed to have been
Japanese in a previous life. Unfortunately, here in our research
department we haven't been able to come up with any cases other
than the young woman from Nathul in central Burma by the

1 10
 name of Ma Tin Aung Myo (who insists that her previous life
was as a Japanese soldier who was killed in machine-gun
strafing from a Grumman fighter plane). However, we heard a
report two months ago of a young woman in a village called
Kamloji in northern India who claims to have spent a previous
life as a Japanese. We have not included her among our research
subjects because she made this admission to her brothers and
sisters when she was four years old, and therefore exceeds the age
limit of three that we have placed as a condition for those
recalling a previous existence. But on the outside chance that this
might be of interest to you, I decided to contact you as you
requested. Her name in Rajini Puniral, and the village of Kamloji
where she was born is near the city of VaranasT on the banks
of the Ganges . . . .

The road was bad, and the bus rocked up and down. Pools of
water glistened here and there, as though it had rained. A clamour
gradually grew nearer, and rickshaws and cars passed them on
the left and right. They saw the scrawny cows that roamed at will
through every Indian town. Barrack-like shops. Men sitting and
drinking tea under naked light bulbs hung from trees. Instead of head­
ing for the centre of town, the bus detoured to the north of Canton­
ment Station.
A manor-like building surrounded by thick bushes finally appeared.
It was the Hotel de Paris, where the Japanese would be staying the
night.
Two durwans dressed in shabby white jackets with wing collars
came running from the entrance. The travellers, weary from their long
bus ride from Delhi, collapsed into chairs in the lobby, where they
craned their necks and yawned while they waited for Enami to com­
plete their check-in at the reception desk.
Til be handing out your room keys and passports now. The durwans
will bring your bags up to your rooms later.'
As she climbed the stairs alongside Isobe, Mitsuko expressed mild
surprise that the hotel appeared seedy and old-fashioned, in sharp
contrast to its spacious gardens. 'This hotel is really antiquated, isn' t
it?'
Even though they had recognized each other in Delhi and on the
aircraft, the two had had little opportunity to speak, perhaps because
something in Mitsuko wanted to avoid him.

1 1 1
 'When the British ruled here,' Isobe replied, 'this was apparently a
British club. That's what the guidebook says. Well, it's certainly not
fourth- or fifth-rate, but it wouldn't be an A-class hotel these days.'
Then he stopped and peered at her. 'Will you be going straight to
bed? After I take a shower, I'd like to cool off in the garden. The
garden seems to be this hotel's only selling point.'
'I may join you. But first I want to hop under the shower, too.'
Their rooms were on the same floor, but considerably apart. When
Mitsuko opened her door, she realized at once that this was a B-class
hotel, just as Isobe had suggested . The bath-tub was black, the chain
to the stopper was broken, and there wasn't even a table beside the
bed. When she stepped under the shower, the exhaustion of the day
seeped from the core of her body. From deep within her trunk she
took the bottle of brandy she had bought at Narita Airport and drank
down a paper cupful in one gulp.
Carrying the brandy bottle and a couple of paper cups, she went
down the stairs and into the garden, where insects buzzed. Several
white cane chairs stood in a row, and the scent of the trees was over­
powering. Mitsuko took in a full breath of that scent, convinced that
this was the aroma of India. She heard the squeak of a swing, and
when she turned round to look, Isobe was swinging by himself. It felt
somehow forlorn to see this large man swinging back and forth all
alone.
'Would you care for a drink?' She held up the bottle of Napoleon
brandy.
Isobe looked back at her cheerfully. Well now, what have we here?'
Til bet you prefer Japanese sake, don't you, Mr Isobe?'
'Who told you that?'
'Your wife, of course. The word around the nurses' station was that
the days she talked about you were the days she was feeling her best.'
'It must have been miserable for you and the nurses to have to
listen to her pointless chatter. But since you've gone to the trouble of
bringing it here, I'll have some. I wanted a drink while we were in the
bus, but when I asked at the reception desk, they told me the restau­
rant and bar were alr�ady closed for the night.'
He narrowed his eyes to savour the liquid she had poured into a
paper cup.
When you get right down to it, good liquor is good liquor, whether
it's sake or not. This is delicious,' he mumbled. 'But I have to admit,
while she was ill, I never dreamed I'd run into you again in India.

7 72
There's really a lot about life that's beyond comprehension.'
She could sense the reality of what he said. There were many things
about life that couldn't be anticipated or comprehended. She had PO

truly firm understanding of why she had decided to come to India .

Sometimes she even felt as though her life played itself out not in line
with her intentions, but at the whim of some other invisible power.
'Why did you come to India, Miss Naruse?'
'Is there something wrong with choosing India?'
'No, it's just that women usually prefer Italy or Portugal, don't they?'
'I'm not young enough to be attracted to the Appian Way or the
fados. But what about you? Why did you join this tour?'
Isobe lifted his face from his cup and blushed like a boy.
'Are you making a pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy sites?' Mitsuko
asked the question because a majority of their group, including the
wife of a Buddhist priest, had come to tour the Buddhist relics.
'No, that's not why . . . .' He hesitated, then made up his mind to be
forthright. 'I'm going to admit this to you . . . because you looked after
my wife right up to the end.' He reached into his jacket pocket. The
wrinkles on the two envelopes he pulled out were evidence that he
had read the letters many times. 'Please read these.'
'Do you mind?'
In the light from the garden lamps, Mitsuko's eyes raced over the
pages of the letters. When the two of them stopped talking, the voices
of the insects in the garden swelled in volume.
'Your wife,' Mitsuko ventured, 'asked me something peculiar.'
'What was it?'
"'After a person dies," ' she asked, "'are they reborn?" '
'She asked that, did she?'
'It was a Saturday evening, when I was collecting the dinner-trays.'
'And . . . how did you reply?'
'I pretended not to hear her. I didn't know what I should say.'
That was a lie. She could still remember what had transpired in the
hospital room that evening. She realized at once, painfully, why Isobe's
wife had asked such a question. The voice asking the question was
charged with the yearning to be with her husband once again, even
after her death.
Mitsuko had been picking up the food-trays. Keiko's question stimu­
lated the tingling urge to destroy which lurked in the depths of
Mitsuko's heart. She despised the sentimental affection a wife felt for
her husband.

1 13
 'Reborn? How should I know?' she had slowly repeated to herself,
crisply chopping off every word. 'It's a lot easier to believe that every­
thing ends when you die. It's better than going on to your next life
carrying around the burdens of all your many pasts.'
She remembered Isobe' s wife's face contorting in pain.
'Could I have another drink?' Isobe held out his cup, shaking off
the emotions that surged up inside him.
Mitsuko handed him the bottle of brandy. 'So, then . . . you're going
to go to this village to look for her?'
'Yes.'
'Do you believe in reincarnation, the way these Hindus do?'
'I'm not sure. I'd never cared anything about what happens after
death until my wife died. I'd never even thought about death. But
something she said to me the day before she died has got stuck in the
web of my mind and won't shake loose. It's determined how I live
my life. I'm a fool, I suppose. There are things about life I just don't
understand.'
The swing continued to sway and creak even after Isobe stood up.
Just as the words his wife had spoken continued to sway his life even
after she was dead. Even when something comes to an end in our
lives, it does not mean that everything has been extinguished.
'It's funny, isn' t it, for an old man like me to come to India in
search of treasure?'
'No. I think I may have come here in search of something, too.'
'What is it you're searching for?'
'I don't know myself. But a friend from my college days is living
here in Varanas1. I'm not quite sure which part of the city, though.
Maybe one of my reasons for coming was to look for him.'
Isobe seemed to believe what Mitsuko was saying.
'Thanks for the drink. It really helped. Tomorrow's another day, so
this old man has to go to bed early.'
After he went back into the hotel, Mitsuko remained in the garden
where the insects continued to chirp heartily. The swing still faintly
creaked. Nights in India were cooler than she had expected - no, not
cooler: lonelier.

She took two sleeping-pills, stretched out on the hard bed, and, an­
noyed by the dimness of the lights, read from a book she had brought
with her, A Student in India, waiting for sleep to overtake her.
A number of photographs had been reproduced in the book, but the

1 14
ones that most interested her were those of the goddesses associated
with Siva. These goddesses were utterly unlike the European images
of the Holy Mother Mary; some rode on water buffaloes and stabbed
at the demon gods, while others depicted the savagery of the goddess
Kall, who stuck out her long, snakelike tongue as she trampled on
her husband Siva.
Two days earlier, at the New Delhi National Museum, Mitsuko
had stared at their collection of photographs depicting the goddess
Kali Tonight the gardens and the hallway were stone silent; per­
haps all the other Japanese tourists had fallen asleep. On a sepa­
rate page, the goddess Kali was gazing towards her, her arms
outstretched, her eyes brimming with gentlen.e ss. Her lips had - or
had Mitsuko just imagined it? - curled into a smile. On the next
page, that smiling Kali sucked warm blood from the blood-soaked
demon Raktavlja. She held up a freshly severed head, and blood
flecked her lips as she poked out her long tongue.
Mitsuko flicked back and forth between the photograph and the
painting, and felt that both images were herself. Earlier that evening
she had told Isobe: 'I think I may have come here in search of some­
thing, too.' Was it the inept O tsu she was searching for? Or was she,
like Therese Desqueyroux, looking for what lay in the depths of her
heart?
The sleeping-pills gradually numbed her brain. She stood up
and turned off the light switch near the door, then again stretched
out on the bed and peered at the thickly painted layers of darkness.
In the hospital where she had worked as a volunteer there had
always been some light, even if just the faint glow from a small
light that the nurses used to examine the faces of their patients.
But the darkness here in India was truly a spiritual darkness,
the darkness of the soul. Mitsuko had come in contact with a
portion of the soul's blackness. As a woman in whom the flame of
passion had been extinguished. As a kindred spirit with Therese
Desqueyroux.
She slept for nearly two hours. In the darkness she could hear a
sound like the flapping of a bird's wings. She reached over and groped
to tum on the lamp on the bedside table, but she quickly remembered
that this dingy room had no such table.
She grew suddenly afraid. She had just finished reading in A
Student in India that while the author was studying in his room, he
had heard a swishing noise outside his window like the sound of a

1 15
broom sweeping the garden, but when the sound began to come from
a corner of his room, he turned round and saw a stark-black cobra
poised to strike.
The flapping sound continued incessantly from over by the wall.
She would have to walk over to the door in order to tum on the light.
If the cobra struck while she was making her way to the door . . .
Mitsuko leaped from her bed. It was not in her nature to hesitate.
She felt along the opposite wall with her hands, searching for the
light switch. At last her fingers found it. When the lights came on,
she discovered a large hole in the wall of her room. The paper that
had been pasted over it to conceal it had come loose and was flapping
in the wind. She had to laugh: it seemed so much in keeping with an
Indian hotel.
Still smiling wryly, Mitsuko sat down in a rickety, persimmon­
coloured chair and reached into her carrier-bag. Once she was
awake, it took some time for sleep to pay her another visit. She pulled
a brown paper bag from her case and placed it on the table. It
contained the several letters that she had exchanged with O ts�. It
seemed strange even to her that she had taken the trouble to bring
them with her.
He had no charm as a man, had nothing in his looks that might
appeal to her, and he always aroused her feelings of contempt. Yet, in
a realm completely removed from the one where Mitsuko and her
friends lived, he had had everything snatched away from him by his
Onion. While at the base of her heart she rejected everything O tsu
stood for, she could not feel indifferent towards him. For whatever
reason, even though she tried to obliterate him with an eraser, he would
not go away.
And now his letters, written in a clumsy scrawl that looked like the
hand of a middle-school boy. It was true that she had dutifully writ­
ten one or two letters in response, but she couldn't imagine why she
had so carefully preserved this correspondence. It made no sense to
her. Something transcending herself had made her hold on to it. Per­
haps it was fair to say that whatever that something was, it had con­
cocted a quiet little plan and brought her here to Varanasl where
O tsu was living. She poured the remaining brown liquid from the
brandy bottle down her throat and hazily thought, You're an idiot.
She muttered the words softly to herself. 'This is so stupid. What
does it ma tter, anyway?'

7 76
A copy of Mitsuko's scrawled note
Happy New Year. I'll send this greeting to the address I got
when I saw you four years ago in Lyon. Are you still living in
Fourviere? For various reasons I have got divorced. I'm living
with my family at the moment. The reason for my divorce . . . at
the end of the year I happened to be reading Fukuda Tsuneari's
Horatio Diary and I ran across the following words, which seem
to capture exactly what I am: 'I cannot truly love another person.
I have never once loved anyone. How can such a person assert
their own existence in this world?' That, ultimately, is the reason
for my divorce. Do you still believe that your Onion makes use of
any opportunity, even of sin?

O tsu's reply to Mitsuko

Your letter was forwarded from Lyon and eventually reached
me. As you can see from the return address, I am no longer
living in Lyon. I now work every day at a religious training
community in Ardeche in the South of France. It's a desolate
place surrounded by rocky mountains, but for now I'm working
hard at farming and physical labour.
If you were to ask why I came here, I suppose it would be
similar to what you wrote in your letter about your divorce.
The brotherhood in Lyon concluded that I was not yet
qualified to become a priest, and they delayed holding my
ordination ceremony. There's something heretical in my nature;
you once joked in Lyon that I was lucky I didn' t get myself
excommunicated. After nearly five years of living in a foreign
country, I can't help but be struck by the clarity and logic of the
way Europeans think, but it seems to me as an Asian that there's
something they have lost sight of with their excessive clarity and
their overabundance of logic, and I just can't go along with it.
Their lucid logic and their way of explaining everything in such
clear-cut terms sometimes even causes me pain.
This is partly because I'm not smart enough and haven't
studied enough to be able to understand their magnificent powers
of organization, but even more than that, it's because my
Japanese sensibilities have made me feel out of harmony with
European Christianity. In the final analysis, the faith of the
Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject
anything they cannot slice into categories with their rationality

1 17
and their conscious minds. For five years in my daily life, in my
studies of theology, and even on my trip to the Holy Land in
company with my superiors in the priesthood, I have feared that I
am mistaken, and I have been all alone. This was the reason I had
such a dark look on my face by the River Saone in Lyon. Sorry.
At the seminary they were most critical of what they saw as a
pantheistic sentiment lurking in my unconscious mind. As a
Japanese, I can't bear those who ignore the great life force that
exists in Nature. However lucid and logical it 'may be, in
European Christianity there is a rank ordering of all living things.
They'll never be able to understand the import of a verse like
Basho' s haiku:

when I look closely

beneath the hedge, mother's-heart
flowers have blossomed

Sometimes, of course, they talk as if they regarded the life force

that causes the mother's-heart flowers to bloom as the same force
that grants life to human beings, but in no way do they consider
them to be identical.
Then what is God to you?' three of my superiors questioned
me at the novitiate, and I was thoughtless enough to answer: 'I
don't think God is someone to be looked up to as a being
separate from man, the way you regard him. I think he is within
man, and that he is a great life force that envelops man, envelops
the trees, envelops the flowers and grasses.'
'Isn't that a pantheistic view?'
Then, using the all-too-translucent logic of scholasticism, they
ferreted out all the flaws in my slipshod thinking. This is just one
small example of what I went through. But an Asian like me just
can't make sharp distinctions and pass judgement on everything
the way they do.
'God makes use not only of our good acts, but even of our sins
in order to save us.' That day, as we leaned against the railing by
the Saone where the afternoon sun shimmered on the cargo ships
sailing up and down the river, I confessed these honest feelings to
you, the same feelings that prompted my comments to my
superiors. And then you replied most splendidly: 'Is that really a
Christian notion?'

1 18
 I was scolded for this notion at the novitiate; they told me it
was dangerously Jansenistic or Manichaeistic ('heretical', in short).
I was told that good and evil are distinct and mutually
incompatible.
So, what with this and that, my ordination to the priesthood has
been postponed. But I have not lost my faith.
Since my youth, thanks to my mother the one thing I was able
to believe in was a mother's warmth. The warmth of her hand as
it held mine, the warmth of her body when she cradled me, the
warmth of her love, the warmth that kept her from abandoning
me even though I was so much more dumbly sincere than my
brothers and sisters. My mother told me all about the person you
call my Onion, and she taught me that this Onion was a vastly
more powerful accumulation of this warmth - in other words,
love itself. I lost my mother when I got older, and I realized then
that what lay at the source of my mother's warmth was a portion
of the love of my Onion. Ultimately what I have sought is
nothing more than the love of that Onion, not any of the other
innumerable doctrines mouthed by the various churches. (This, of
course, was another reason I have been regarded as a heretic.)
Love, I think, is the core of this world we live in, and through our
long history that is all the Onion has imparted to us. The thing
we are most lacking in our modern world is love; love is the
thing no one believes in any more; love is what everyone
mockingly laughs at - and that is why someone like me wants to
follow my Onion with dumb sincerity.
My trust is in the life of the Onion, who endured genuine
torment for the sake of love, who exhibited love on our behalf. As
time passes, I feel that trust strengthening within me. I haven't
been able to adapt myself to the thinking and the theology of
Europe, but when I suffer all alone, I can feel the smiling
presence of my Onion, who knows all my trials. And just as he
told the travellers on the road to Emmaus when he walked beside
them, he has said to me, 'Come, follow me.'
Sometimes at night, when I've finished my labours and I look
up at the stars glittering above the fields of grapes, I become
frightened of where he is leading me.

Mitsuko could remember where she was when she read this letter,
scribbled in characters as clumsy as those of a middle-school student.

1 19
She was in a hospital room. After her divorce, her father gave her
some money to start up a boutique. With some help from her ex­
husband as well, she was able to add dresses and accessories from
famous Paris couturiers to her stock. Then, once or twice a week she
began volunteering at a large private hospital located behind the Togo
Shrine. It was a spontaneous decision. Around that time, she had con­
cluded that the statement from Fukuda Tsuneari's Horatio Diary was
an exact reflection of her own heart: 'I cannot truly love another per­
son. I have never once loved anyone. How can such a person assert
their own existence in this world?' She had started volunteering at the
hospital as a result of these perverse feelings. It was not that love had
ceased to smoulder within her; rather she was a woman in whom the
spark of love had never been kindled. Many times over she had made
a show of passion with a man, but never once had honest flames
flickered inside her. Around the time Mitsuko was contemplating her
own ridiculousness as she washed out patients' bedpans and fed them
their meals, she received the letter from O tsu. She didn't feel the least
envious of him. Instead, the words of his letter wounded her. She sent
him a brief postcard in reply. She remembered that it had been a
Munch painting on the postcard. A drawing of the face of a forsaken
man. She couldn't remember what she had written on the card, but no
doubt she had gone out of her way to select the kind of postcard that
would hurt O tsu because . . . .

A letter from O tsu to Mitsuko

Thank you very much for your card. As I looked over the
postcard you sent, I could feel between the lines how lonely you
are.
But just as my Onion is always beside me, he is always within
you and beside you, too. He is the only one who can understand
your pain and your loneliness. One day he will transport you to
another realm. We cannot have any idea when that will be, or
how it will happen, or what form it will take. He makes use of
every means. Like a magician, he will transform your 'charades
of passion' and yol!r 'unspeakable nights' (though I have no idea
what you mean by these words).
Quinine produces high fevers if you drink it when you are
well, but it becomes an indispensable drug for a malaria sufferer.
I think sin is very much like quinine.
I expect it will take you by surprise for me to write about

120
quinine out of the blue. I learned about it from a Jewish doctor
here in Israel at the kibbutz by the Sea of Galilee. Even today the
Sea of Galilee is more beautiful than I had ever dreamed, but I'm
told that in ancient times it was a pestilential land teeming with
malaria victims. The Bible describes the miracles that my Onion
performed in healing many who had fevers, and it seems likely
that these were malaria victims.
I still haven't been able to become a priest. In the opinion of
the ecclesiastical leaders at the seminary, I am lacking in the
virtue of obedience necessary to become a priest, and I have lost
sight of the principles vital for the development of true faith.
Their claims that I lack obedience and am wanting in true faith
are based on the fact that I continue to write and insist that I do
not believe that the European brand of Christianity is absolute.
I now somewhat regret having spoken foolishly in front of the
brethren of the Church. But it seems perfectly natural to me that
many people select the god in whom they place their faith on the
basis of the culture and traditions and climate of the land of their
birth. I think that Europeans have chosen Christianity because it
was the faith of their forefathers, and because Christian culture
dominated their native lands. You can't say that the people of the
Middle East chose to become Muslims and many Indians became
Hindus after conducting rigorous comparisons of their religions
with those of other peoples. In my own case, it was the
exceptional circumstances of my mother that led me to my beliefs.
Many years ago, when you asked me 'Why do you believe in
God?' I was lost for words because I had not chosen my religion
of my own free will. But now the kind of questions I have just
mentioned constantly pass through my mind.
'Don' t you think it was because of the grace and the love of
God that you were born into such a family?' the spiritual director
at the seminary asked me.
'I do. But isn't it also the grace of God when those born into
other families join another religion?'
I said this with no evil intent, but my response wounded this
man, who was set in the standard Christian ways of thinking. I
opened myself to the harshest criticism in an oral examination
when I said: 'God has many different faces. I don't think God
exists exclusively in the churches and chapels of Europe. I think
he is also among the Jews and the Buddhists and the Hindus.'

12 1
This was an honest declaration of what I had come to believe
since my arrival in Europe, but to my teachers it sounded like an
outright rejection of the Christian Church.
I was viciously reprimanded: These are the notions born of
your pantheistic delusions!'
In confusion I blurted out, 'But is there nothing pantheistic
within Christianity itself? At the seminary I have been taught that
the monotheism of Christianity is in direct opppsition to
pantheism, but as a Japanese, I believe that Christianity has been
able to spread as widely as it has because so many diverse
elements exist within it.'
'Tell us what these diverse elements are.'
'When we made a pilgrimage to the cathedral in Chartres, I
read in a book that the people of that region had sublimated a
belief in their local earth mother goddess to a belief in the Holy
Mother. In other words . . . I think they have fostered a Christianity
that has its roots in their faith in the earth mother goddess. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were many Japanese
who converted to Christianity, but their faith was different from
that of the people of Europe.'
'How was it different?'
There were Buddhist elements, and elements of the pantheism
you have just belittled, mixed together in their beliefs.'
My teachers were silent, but it seemed to me there was obvious
displeasure in their silence.
Then where do you draw the line between orthodoxy and
heresy?'
'We no longer live in the Middle Ages. We live in a time when
we must hold dialogues with other religions.'
'Naturally the Vatican recognizes that need.'
'But Christianity does not regard other religions as equal to
itself.' By this point, I was half desperate, and decided to let the
chips fall where they would. 'A European scholar once remarked
that the noble people of other faiths were actually Christians
driving without a li�ence, but you can hardly call this a dialogue
among equals. I think the real dialogue takes place when you
believe that God has many faces, and that he exists in all
religions.'
Silence and chilly expressions. I realized that I had said
something incredibly foolish. It was clear that my teachers

1 22
regarded me as the possessor of highly dangerous thoughts.
'If that is the case,' the rector of the seminary asked, hoping to
afford me a path of rescue, 'why don' t you go back to being a
Buddhist? Wouldn't that be a natural reversion to your way of
thinking?'
'No. I wasn't brought up in Japan in a Buddhist household. I
was raised in a Christian family, just as you brethren were. So it
was natural for me to choose from among God's many faces the
same face you chose.'
'Then what are your thoughts on the process of conversion? Of,
say, a Buddhist abandoning his Buddhism and becoming a
Christian.'
'I think it's possible. In the same way that each individual
chooses a suitable member of the opposite sex to marry.'
Along with feeling it was time to let the chips fall, I hoped, if
there were some basic flaw in my thinking, that my teachers -
those men in whom I trusted - would help to correct me. But I
didn't believe that a hypocritical lie would serve any purpose in
my life.
As a result - though the outcome was to be expected - I was
once again found unqualified to become a priest. Even so, some
of the kinder brethren among my superiors in the order did their
best on my behalf, and opened up the way for me to work and
continue my studies at this novitiate in Galilee.
I know full well that this entire tale will seem boring and
distant to you as a Japanese. Forgive me for staying up until the
middle of the night tonight to write it to you, knowing all the
while how it will affect you. I had to tell it to someone. Just as
that man had to express his feelings here in Galilee to the lonely,
the sick, and the suffering.
I suppose, in my loneliness, that I wanted to talk to you
because you are lonely, too. It's pitiful to have to say it, but I am
lonely. . . .
The Sea of Galilee stretches out here in front of the novitiate.
From time to time it has been called Kinnaret, the Sea of the Harp,
and here where Jesus spoke to the people, and where the fisherman
from Capernaum named Peter cast his nets, tonight the light of
the moon glitters on the surface of the water. That man - no,
since you're a Japanese, Miss Naruse, I suppose you retreat to a
respectful distance merely hearing the name of Jesus. If that's the

1 23
 case, then please call Jesus by the name of Love. If the word Love
leaves you cold, then you can call him the warmth of life. If you
don't like that, then we can go back to our old familiar Onion.
The number of Jews here beside the Sea of Galilee is
overpowering, but there are also Christians and Muslims living
here. They seem to be curious abou t me because I'm a Japanese,
and sometimes I visit their kibbutzes, and I've been invited into
the homes of the Muslims. I have found my Onion dwelling
amongst them. So why is it that my brethren have to look down
on the followers of other religions and feel a subtle sense of
superiority in their hearts? I feel the existence of my Onion within
the Jews and the Muslims. He is everywhere.

The entire letter was awash in O tsu's syrupy voice. His self-ab­
sorbed reminiscences, oblivious to her feelings, scarcely aroused her
curiosity. Religion had no part in her life, and she certainly had no
interest in O tsu's way of life. She had her hands full trying to cope
with her own loneliness, let alone his. What she felt within herself
was the enervation of love, and to bury the hollowness she experi­
enced after her divorce, she had become involved in relationships with
several of her old college friends as well as businessmen she met at
hotel bars. But all she found in each of those encounters were men
who thrust their heads into the trough to indulge in pleasure, and her
own empty eyes studying their movements.
Mitsuko became a volunteer at the hospital. From her own hunger
for love, she cultivated the masochistic desire to engage in a make­
believe charade of love. It was a simple matter for her to listen to the
complaints of the pa tients, to offer them words of sympathy, to pour
spoonfuls of soup down the throats of the immobile, to wash their
bedpans, and to hear their words of gratitude. Mitsuko knew that
what she performed were not acts cf love from her heart, but mere
play-acting.
As she watched the unresisting figures of elderly women sleeping in
their beds, Mitsuko would suddenly be gripped by a nebulous urge,
and at times she would pretend to forget to change their undergar­
ments or to give them the medicines they were supposed to take. On
those occasions, she heard another voice identical to hers saying: This
invalid isn't going to get better whether she takes her medicine or not. This
old woman isn't doing anybody any good; in fact, she's a burden to her
family, and it's a far better thing to put her at ease sooner rather than later.

1 24
 None of the nurses or doctors was aware of her two faces. The head
nurse watched her playing her role and announced, 'She's fantastic!'
Mitsuko plastered on a look of utter modesty and responded, 'No, not
at all.' And inwardly she slid into her smile a cold, mocking grin as
she thought of the look of blank amazement that would steal across
this nurse's face if she knew that the night before, after Mitsuko had
left the hospital, she had linked arms with a young man who had
spoken to her on the twelfth floor of the Imperial Hotel and accompa­
nied him to his room.
O tsu wrote that God has many faces, she suddenly thought as she
joined the man in his bed. And so do I.
One evening she attended an annual class reunion. She hadn't at­
tended one for two years, and she couldn't help noticing that Kondo
and her other partners in pleasure from college had all now become
businessmen wearing midnight-blue suits, while the women had found
proper partners in marriage.
Their topics of conversation were the same as those of her ex-hus­
band and his friends: golf and cars, and nothing else. The conversa­
tions of the women focused on child-rearing and getting their children
ready for elementary school.
'I got a divorce,' Mitsuko abruptly announced to the group.
A nervous silence spread over the crowd for a moment, but finally
one of her women friends asked, 'Why? Did somethino:-: happen?'
'I just couldn't become a good wife like the rest of j ou.'
'But you'd like a child, wouldn't you?'
'Heavens, no. I can' t imagine bringing someone just like myself
into this world.'
Everyone laughed, thinking Mitsuko was jesting. Kondo, evidently
trying to cover for her; said nostalgically, 'Didn't we call you Moira
back in those days? And at Allo-Allo we had some fun with that guy
named O tsu.'
'Apparently . . . he's become a Catholic priest,' someone with access
to the information announced. 'I help make up the mailing list for our
graduates. When I wrote to his family and asked for his current ad­
dress, his brother said he'd become a priest and was working at a
religious community in India.'
'Where in India?'
'What was it called? It's that place you see in all the pictures of
India. The place where everybody bathes in the River Ganges.'
No one, Mitsuko included, knew what the place was called, and no

1 25
one aside from Mitsuko had any interest in this information. The topic
of conversation quickly turned to rumours about a professional base­
ball player and the decor at a restaurant in Roppongi that one of their
classmates had opened.
When Mitsuko returned home, she opened an encyclopedia from
her father's library, from which she learned that there were several
cities in India that fitted the description of her classmate, but that the
most famous was a place called Varanas1. The encyclopedia included
a photograph of several Hindu men and wo men, their bodies
wrapped in saris, submerged in the river.

126
 S E VE N

Goddesses

Isobe had never imagined he would find himself sitting in a hotel

room in a foreign country thinking back over his life with his wife. In
planning his life, he had assumed that he would die before her, but he
had not given much thought to how she would live after he was gone.
He supposed she would be able to get by on money from his life
insurance and their savings. His vague assumption somewhere below
the level of his consciousness was that matters would take care of
themselves when the time came. Now that he thought about it, he was
an old-fashioned man who had never attached any profound value or
meaning to his married life.
Did I love my wife?
He had to ask himself that question, as he endured the unspeakable
loneliness and regret in those empty days following her death, each
time he looked through her belongings - the chopsticks she had used
every day, the linen, the clothes hanging in her cupboard . But, like
most Japanese husbands, he had not given any serious thought to the
meaning of 'love' during his marriage.
Married life to him was a division of labour between a man and
wife who look after one another and tend to one another's needs. They
lived together beneath the same roof, and once the feelings of romance

127
had fled swiftly away, what remained was to determine how each
could be useful and helpful to the other. It was not particularly im­
portant, as it is in foreign countries, for a wife to become active so­
cially in order to promote her husband's rise up the corporate ladder,
or to remain ever alluring as a woman. He felt that a wife's most
important job was to put up with her husband's tempers and create a
place of repose for him when he returned from work each day with
frayed nerves.
In that sense, Keiko had certainly been a good wife. She never med­
dled in his affairs at or away from home, and though she lacked
physical appeal, she knew her place and stayed out of his way.
In a speech he gave at the banquet after one of his younger co­
workers got married, he had remarked, 'A wife should be just like air
to her husband. If you have no air, you're in trouble. But air is invis­
ible to the eye. It never intrudes in your life. If the woman can become
like air, they'll never have problems as husband and wife.'
The men sitting at the banquet tables laughed. Some even applauded.
'There's nothing wrong with married life being dull and quiet.'
Isobe couldn't remember the expression on his wife's face as she sat
beside him and listened to his speech. But since she never said a word
about it that night in the taxi or after they arrived home, lsobe as­
sumed she must have agreed with what he said.
But he had left out something very important in his speech. He had
not touched on the fact that the plain, quiet, dull - in short, the 'good'
- wife that Isobe had described, grows weary with the passage of
time.
In point of fact, around the time they had attended that wedding,
the kind of lassitude that develops in every marriage had settled over
Isobe and his wife. One reason was that his life with her had become
too ordinary and too monotonous. Once they both turned into the airy
sorts of existences he had mentioned in his banquet speech, his wife
became nothing more than a wife to him, and she ceased to be a
woman in his eyes.
By no means did he consider her a bad mate. But at that point in
his life, as he attained his prime as a man, his selfish nature sought
something other than a · good wife; what he wanted was a woman.
He had no wish at all for a divorce. Being no longer wet behind the
ears, he knew well enough that wives and women were not necessar­
ily the same thing. In all honesty, two or three times he had played
with fire without getting burned.

- 1 28
 One of his affairs was with a woman who owned an Italian restaur­
ant in the Ginza where he sometimes hosted business dinners. It was
a unique restaurant, offering both native food matched to the tastes of
the Japanese as well as Italian dishes, which made it ideal for enter­
taining clients.
She always decked herself out to look younger than her years in
order to attract business. She wore daringly red dresses, tied girlish
black ribbons in her hair, and set dishes on the stark-white tables
with fingers attractively manicured. She attended to details so dili­
gently that even first-time customers left satisfied.
This businesswoman, who was in every respect the opposite of Keiko,
provided Isobe with the things he could not obtain from his wife at
that point in their marriage. Their adopted daughter, now married,
was in middle school at the time, and Isobe sometimes grumbled to
this woman that the girl disliked him for no reason.
'My daughter was like that,' she said, laughing. 'She hated my
husband for a while, and she'd hardly talk to him or even go near
him.'
'Why?'
'Because her father was drinking health potions. When children are
that age, they have an image of an ideal father, and when the gap
between that ideal and their actual father gets too wide, they wind up
hating him.'
'And just wha t is the image of an ideal father?'
'Oh, he's a sportsman, tall and thin, and most of all gentle.' She
laughed. 'In short, the kind of papa you see in American movies. But
her own father always had a weary face, and he'd stand on the train
platform guzzling stamina drinks. When a young girl's father won't
do anything on Sundays but watch television, she feels betrayed.'
Her laugh was like that of an actress named Taiji Kiwako, who
frequently appeared on television in those days. Come to think of it,
her face and figure reminded him of the famous performer also.
'So it's bad to be a father who drinks health potions, huh?'
Isobe silently compared his wife with this woman, who volleyed
intelligent remarks at him like a tennis-ball. His wife would have
answered his question by saying: 'It's because you're too blunt with
the child. You talk to her like you're talking to a boy.'
Isobe made the rounds of the bars with this woman, and on one
occasion they ended up committing what might well be called an in­
discretion together. The clever woman knew full well that Isobe was

129
not reckless enough to cast off his family for her, and nearing fifty
himself, Isobe was well aware of how messy a divorce could be.
Isobe had no idea whether his wife knew of the affair. She never
said a word about it. Even if she had been aware of it, she would
have pretended to know nothing. When the relationship was over,
Isobe felt some guilt, but he had very little sense of actually having
betrayed his wife. One or two dalliances had nothing to do with the
bonds of marriage. Simply put, his wife had come to seem no more
like a woman to him than did his own sisters. Irl exchange, with the
passing of the years an invisible link had gradually formed between
them in much the same way that dust accumulates.
Did marital love mean this kind of linkage? At the time, not 'even
that thought had crossed his mind, but when she was stricken with
cancer and the doctor told him how long she had left to live, he was
staggered by the shock and fear of losing his lifelong companion. The
sky outside the window was darkly sombre, and he could hear the
voice of the potato vendor.
Then came the babblings that ended up being her final words. Un­
til then, Isobe had never known her display such fierce passion. Though
they had lived together for many years, he had never considered the
possibility that such a yearning could reside within the depths of her
heart. He had made her a promise, and that promise slowly took on a
weighty, compelling meaning for him . . . and now, he had come to
this foreign land.

After washing himself in the rust-coloured water from the shower,

Numada put on a new sports shirt and a pair of beige trousers and
went downstairs to the dining-room. It was still before 7 a.m., and
there was only one guest in the dining-room - their guide Enami,
who was reading an English-language newspaper during breakfast.
'Good morning. Anything interesting in the news?' Numada had
neither knowledge about nor interest in the political affairs of India,
but since the first page of the newspaper lying on the table had a
photograph of the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, he dutifully posed
the question.
'It looks like there's some real unrest,' Enami answered as he wiped
his mouth with a napkin. 'The Sikhs are up to something. It's only the
charismatic presence of Indira Gandhi that maintains any sort of or­
der here in India.'
The Sikhs - are they the bearded Indians with turbans wrapped

130
round their heads?' Nurnada asked the question, but he had no interest
in the subject. He stared at the red, ball-shaped objects on Enarni's
plate and asked, 'What are those?'
'Onions pickled in vinegar.'
'Nothing but vegetables, huh? Are you a vegetarian, Mr Enami?'
'In the morning I just eat these and a kind of yoghurt called lassi.
But when I travel with a group, I end up having to take some meat
with lunch and dinner. I put on weight easily, I'm afraid. But, tell me,
how do you like India so far?'
'I'm content just looking at nature. There are banyan trees every­
where, and it's a simple ma tter to locate pipals and udurnbaras.
This morning when I woke up, the birds were chirping loudly in
the garden . . . . Words fail me.'
The Hindus plant trees in the places where corpses are cremated.'
'That's true with cherry trees in Japan, too. The cherries at Mount
Yoshino were all put there in place of grave-markers. There's a very
close connection between death and vegetation.'
'Is that so? I didn't realize that. Would you like to order something
for breakfast?'
'Just some hot coffee.'
'You'll be better off on our travels through the day if you put some­
thing in your stomach. You might try some of these pickled onions.'
The Hindus believe that trees bear within them the life force that
produces rebirth, don't they?'
'Yes.'
'I'm very struck by that notion.' As he slurped the coffee the
khitmutgar brought him, Nurnada broke into a satisfied smile. 'I write
children's stories, you know. Nearly everything I write is about inter­
changes between children and animals. But corning here to India and
seeing those massive banyan trees, I've made up my mind that my
next story will be about trees and children.'
'Really?'
'We passed through that thick forest when we were travelling here
from Allahabad. The one you told me had the bird sanctuary . . . . I've
never seen such a forest before. What I sensed as we travelled through
there was the individual voices of each tree in the forest. They seemed
to be saying something to us.'
'When the Indians rose up in rebellion against the British in 1 857,
the trees of that forest near Allahabad were used in place of a gallows,
and Indians were hanged from them. I didn't mention that in the

131
bus.' Enami seemed almost to be tossing water on Numada's enthusi­
asm.
He had studied Indian philosophy in its native land for four years,
but after he returned to Japan he could not find anywhere to apply his
hard-earned knowledge. Not a single university department had an
opening for him, and discontent over having to work part-time as a
tour guide had accumulated in the deepest recesses of his heart. Frankly,
he despised the Japanese tourists he had to shuttle around for the
Cosmos Tour Company just so that he could pubfood on the table.
The deeply grateful old men and women who made the rounds of the
Buddhist relics; the college women who relished the hippie-like home­
less; and the men like Numada who searched the natural environment
of India for something they had lost. They always took the same sou­
venirs back to Japan with them: silk saris, sandalwood necklaces,
damascene ornaments, gems modelled on the star ruby or emeralds,
and silver bracelets. Enami stood in the doorways of stores where
once American and European tourists had bought up everything in
sight and watched contemptuously as the Japanese roved from show­
case to showcase.
Of course Enami never displayed his true feelings. His present maxim
for living was 'passive resistance'. He constantly repeated to himself:
In front of your customers, you must always be the affable, accommodat­
ing tou r guide.
'You were planning to visit the wildlife sanctuaries, weren't you,
Mr Numada?'
'I'm hoping to. I want to see with my own eyes the homeland of
birds like the hornbill and the myna that have come from tropical
countries.'
'Why?'
'That's a personal secret,' Numada laughed. 'You have some secrets
of your own, don't you, Mr Enami?'
'I certainly do. It's strange, you know. Usually when a male Japa­
nese tourist gets me alone this, he acts as though he's telling me some
dark personal secret, then asks me in a low voice to take him to a
place where he can find women. But you're different, Mr Numada.'
'I really hate that. Here in India at least, I have no interest in such
things.'
'Excuse me for saying this, but the natural environment in India is
considerably more vulgar than you think.'
'I suppose you mean the contradictory nature that combines the

1 32
powers of both creation and destruction? It seems as if every book on
India I pick up makes that argument, and I'm sick to death of it.'
'Early tomorrow morning we'll be going to watch people bathing in
the Ganges. The right bank is jammed with all manner and size of
ghats and buildings, but the opposite bank of the broad river is cov­
ered with nothing but trees. To the Hindus, as I understand it, the left
bank conjures up images of uncleanliness. I've been to that left bank.'
'And?'
'I've never been anywhere where I've felt more strongly the ghastly
vulgarity of nature.'
'You're just saying that to lead me on, aren't you?'
'That's right. You're just too pure a person, that's all there is to it.
Ah, everyone else seems to be waking up. Excuse me.'
Tourists dressed for hot weather, each carrying a camera, filtered
one after another into the dining-room. Enami quickly got to his feet
and translated their breakfast orders to the khitmutgar.
As he studied their tour guide, who had gone through a complete
transformation since their conversation, Numada pondered the words
Enami had used: 'vulgar nature'. Instinctively, he had a vague idea
what that meant, but as a writer of children's stories, nature to him
had never seemed cruel or hideous. Nature had to be the medium that
facilitated the interaction between man and the life force.

Numada walked down into the garden, stretched his arms wide and
took a deep breath. He had heard that India would still be hot at the
end of October, but - maybe because it was still before 8 a.m. - the
exhilarating air retained the aromas of earth and light that he had not
smelled for a long while in the concrete city of Tokyo. Numada sucked
in mouthfuls of air and spat out the noxious vapours that had accu­
mulated inside his body.
'Practising your breathing exercises, are you?' Kiguchi, still chew­
ing on the remains of his breakfast, called out familiarly as he came
through the door.
'Just my own form of deep breathing.'
'That's wonderful. I never let a morning go by without doing some
callisthenics. Even here in India, when I wake up I sit down on the
floor and do my exercises.'
'Excuse me,' the young Sanjas called out loudly from behind them.
'Would you mind snapping one for us?'
'Snapping one?'

1 33
 'You just push this button here.' Sanjo foisted his camera on Numada,
and he and his wife walked towards a spot where marguerites bloomed
madly. With no hesitation he wrapped his arm round his wife's waist,
and the new bride rested her head on her husband's shoulder.
'And they call themselves Japanese? Not a scrap of shame about
them,' Kiguchi grumbled to himself as he stood next to Numada, who
was holding the camera up to his eye.
'Oh, don't be so hard on them. They're newly-weds, after all.'
'You couldn't even imagine such behaviour in o� r day.'
'In my day, too, a honeymoon overseas was beyond all possibility.
But now Japan has prospered, and these young people are no different
from the foreigners.'
Would you mind taking three or four more?' Oblivious to the whis­
perings passing between Kiguchi and Numada, Sanjo made bold to
ask.
From the entrance to the spacious gardens an old man carrying a
tattered bag and a basket came shuffling in, accompanied by a young
man and a boy. The old man was as thin as a matchstick, and his
wiry legs poked out beneath his short trousers.
'Niimaste,' the boy said with a servile smile. 'JiipiinT? JapiinT?'
'Han,' Numada answered with a Hindi word he had just learned,
but nothing else the three said was comprehensible.
Enami appeared from the group of Japanese who had gathered in
the doorway, and after he had conversed with the old man he ex­
plained: 'He says they're going to show you a fight between a mon­
goose and a snake. These fellows are snake-charmers known as siipera.
They're outcasts. Their entire village is composed of snake-charmers
and their families.'
The old man, wizened like a dead tree, knelt on the ground, and
when he began to play a peculiar melody on his flute, the lid of the
basket slid off and a cobra shaped like a folded umbrella poked its
face out. Mrs Sanjo squealed and clung to her husband.
'It's all right,' Sanjo told his wife. 'They've removed its poisonous
fangs. Isn' t that right, Mr Enami?'
'Yes. You seem to kn<;>w all about it.'
'I've seen it on television. The mongoose has had its teeth removed
so it won't actually kill the snake.'
'You're spoiling all our fun, Mr Sanjo.' Enami studied the deflated
looks on the other tourists' faces. 'When you give away the trick, our
whole trip to India loses its fascination.'

134
 When the tour bus sidled up beside the garden entrance, it kicked
up a white cloud of dust. Circled by the Japanese, the mongoose
adroitly sprang at the cobra and pinned it down. When the group
applauded, the old man plunged his twiglike fingers into his bag and
pulled out an eerie-looking, grey-coloured snake. Some of the women
in the group gasped in fear.
'He says it's a snake with two heads.' Enami had scarcely finished
his dutiful explanation when he was suddenly gripped by a feeling of
revulsion, wondering how many times he had told tourists about this
two-headed snake. He had not pursued his studies in India just so he
could describe these inconsequential stunts to others. It wasn't so he
could take groups of tourists to the Taj Mahal and repeat the same
speeches over and over in the same voice, telling them how it had
taken twenty-two years to construct, and how Shah Jahan of the Mo­
gul Empire had built it in memory of his beautiful princess, Mumtaz.
There's no reason to expect that any of them really u nderstand India.
And yet, when these religious leaders and men of culture go back to Japan,
they talk as though they have understood everything there is to know about
India.
He donned his tour-guide smile and cheerful voice in an attempt to
wipe away these thoughts of abhorrence. 'Well then, please get in the
bus. The temperature will be climbing today, but it'll be cool inside
the bus with the air-conditioning on.'

Even inside the bus the smells of the city were obtrusive. The smells
of sweat, of the gutters, of foods frying at outdoor stalls; outlandish
colours; brass and copper pots glistening even inside darkened shops.
Women streamed by, draped in saris of yellow and persimmon and
black. Grey cows, so spindly their back and shoulder bones protruded,
paraded past. An elephant with firewood piled on its back was herded
through the clouds of dust.
'We have finally entered the city of Varanas1, which might well
be called the India within India.' With the microphone to his mouth,
Enami fluently enunciated his memorized speech. 'The city lies on the
shores of two rivers, the Varana and the Asi, and the main current of
the River Ganges. As I explained to you yesterday, the Hindus regard
a place where two rivers flow together as holy ground. The rich in
their trains and automobiles, the impoverished on foot - all make
their pilgrimages to this city. According to their religious beliefs, all
their sins are washed away when they bathe in the sacred waters of

1 35
the Ganges, and when death comes, if the ashes from their corpses are
scattered in this river, they will be released from the cycle of transmi­
gration.'
The tourist bus always drove along the same course. The Bharahnata
Temple, the campus of Hindu University, and the bathing sites along
the River Ganges.
But sometimes Enami, after guiding his tourists to those predeter­
mined locations, would also escort them to a unique Hindu temple of
'
his own choosing. This was a special favour to his clients, as well as
an opportunity to take his revenge on them.

The air that had been so refreshing that morning gave way in the
afternoon to a quietly pervasive heat laden with humidity.
Enami purposely avoided going to the ghats on the Ganges in
the morning hours. He did not want the Japanese tourists gawking
at the holy river, the sacred rituals and the hallowed places of
death solely out of curiosity. When the Japanese watched from
their boats as the Hindus bathed in the river, they always said the
same things:
'Can you believe they actually scatter the ashes from dead bodies
in the river?'
'I can't imagine all these Indians don't get sick from it.'
'I can't stand this smell . . . ! Doesn't it bother the Indians?'
Once again Enami would have to listen to the scorn and narrow­
mindedness of his tourists, but such things did not bother him in the
evening.
Instead, Enami led them down the narrow alleys leading to the gate­
way of the Vishvanatha Temple, which looked particularly 'Indian' to
Japanese eyes. The tiny shops, wedged together on both sides of the
streets like black-market stalls, were packed with a variety of strange
items. There were stores where sugar-cane was washed in a bucket,
run through a roller and squeezed to produce juice; shops where coco­
nuts were cracked open with a large knife and straws inserted for the
customers to drink. Tobacconists offered rolled leaves filled with be­
tel-nut leaves or spices . .
'This is chewing tobacco. It's rather bitter, but it might make a good
souvenir.'
The stores where Enami took his charges never varied, and the shop­
fronts with sleeping dogs where he offered his explanations were al­
ways the same. With a smile, he declared in a congenial voice: 'It's

- 136
called piin by the Indians. It turns the inside of your mouth a little
red.'
The male tourists inquisitively stuffed the chewing tobacco in their
mouths, then contorted their faces at its bitterness. The women watched
and laughed. The click of camera shutters. A half-naked man carry­
ing baskets on a pole over his shoulder passed directly beside them.
'That's the yoghurt man.'
'I'd like to buy some Indian silk. Are there any shops around here?'
The sunlight grew increasingly bright. Among the tourists, Enami
was mildly interested in Mitsuko. He was drawn to her profile with
her broad-brimmed hat and sun-glasses. She had none of the wilful­
ness or impertinence so common in female tourists, and a smile al­
ways garnished her cheeks.
If I slept with her, he imagined to himself as he stared at her profile,
I wonder what kind of look she 'd have on her face?
Enami had slept with two of the women on the tours he led as a
side job. Both had been ordinary, middle-aged housewives. There was
something in the dank heat of India that stimulated the human libido.
That same something could be found in the mysterious aura of Hin­
duism. As he scrutinized Mitsuko from time to time, he wondered
what sorts of relationships she had had with men.
An early lunch. They were finished by one. The bus again took on
its passengers and delivered them to the Nakshar Bhagavatl Temple.
Most Japanese found this temple boring, and it aroused the curiosity
of a meagre few. It was not on the itinerary for the usual tours of
India, and only Enami went out of his way to bring sightseers here.
'The name of this temple means "a woman who showers mercy".'
Enami gathered his group in an underground chamber smelling of
limestone. They were blasted by the sweltering heat the moment they
set foot inside. This place, too, teemed with the quietly obscene atmos­
phere unique to India.
'The "bhaga" in Bhagavatl refers to a woman's genitals,' Enami
explained with a deliberately innocent look.
'Bhaga?' A man's voice responded. 'It's hot as a bugger in here, all
right. It's like a steam-bath.'
Two or three laughed at his feeble joke, but Mitsuko's expression
did not change.
'I brought you here because I wanted you to experience a part of
the Hindu religion. Rather than having me explain it, I think the vari­
ous images of women carved into these walls will help you feel all the

1 37
groanings and misery and terror of India. Feel free to ask if you want
me to explain anything.'
Several of the men and women, unable to bear the moist heat of the
interior, would not go any further inside. These were not Buddhist
images, so the Japanese displayed no interest in these Hindu deities.
These were no more than drab etchings unconnected to their own lives.
The stifling air. The dark subterranean interior. The eerie sculptures
floated before their eyes. The hideousness of the images were reminis­
cent of the feelings of loathing that people experien �e when they have
an unobstructed view of the writhing elements concealed beneath the
level of their own conscious minds.
They walked down the abraded stone steps. For an instant Mitsuko
had the impression that she was beginning the descent into the depths
of her heart. She felt both the anxiety and the pleasure of peering into
the interior of her heart with a microscope.
Isobe was breathing roughly behind her. It was, more than any­
thing else, sweltering. Numada and the others followed.
'Watch your step along here, please.'
The dim light from the electric light bulbs made every grimy wall
look like a cavern. Black figures, obscenely tangled together like the
roots of trees, darted up before their eyes. The Japanese tourists said
nothing, and the images did not even tremble.
Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. They realized the ol­
jects that had appeared to be the intertwined bodies of men and women
were in fact multiple arms and legs. Gradually they came to the reali­
zation that the hands were holding human skulls and heads. These
were goddesses, wearing peculiar crowns and riding on tigers or lions,
wild boars or water-buffalo.
'Are these images all of the same goddess?'
When Enami walked up beside her to answer her question, Mitsuko
smelled the strong aroma of perspiration coming from the chunky
arms protruding through his short-sleeved shirt.
'No, each one is different. Would you like to know their names?'
'I couldn't remember them even if you told them to me. They all
look exactly the same to _me.'
'Many of the Indian goddesses take on not only gentle forms, but
also frightening visages. I suppose that's because they symbolize all
the activities of life, both birth and, simultaneously, death.'
They're very different from the Holy Mother Mary, aren't they, even
though she's a goddess too?'

· 1 38
 'Very different indeed. Mary is a representation of the Mother, but
the goddesses of India are at the same time symbols of the forces of
nature that exult in death and blood.'
The men in the group listened silently as Mitsuko conversed with
Enami. There was nothing at all about the preposterously irrational,
ugly goddesses that caught their fancies. From the word 'goddess'
they had been expecting something tender, something maternal. And
the sweltering heat of this underground chamber had left their faces
and necks stained with sweat.
In a tired voice, Numada muttered to himself, 'There's something
about this place that strips away all the joy and hope of being alive.'
The Nature he had taken up in his children's stories over the years
had been nothing so turbulent and fearful. To him Nature had been a
force that gently embraced mankind.
Nor could Isobe find anything compassionate about the images of
these goddesses that covered the walls. Even though their bodies boasted
voluptuous breasts and full hips symbolic of the earth's fertile har­
vests, he could not find one with a smile resembling that of his dead
wife's.
Kiguchi superimposed the ghosts of the Japanese soldiers who had
walked the Highway of Death over this ugly, grimy throng, and as he
groped for the beads on the Buddhist rosary he wore round his wrist,
he intoned a passage from the Amida Sutra: 'And the entire world,
with the gods and evil spirits and every other manner of creature,
heard the teachings of the Buddha and, receiving them with gladness,
believed.'
'It's just too hot. Can we go back outside?' Numada, unable to bear
it any longer, asked.
'Just one more,' Enami said, restraining the group. 'Please have a
look at an image of my favourite goddess.' He pointed to an image
that resembled a tree sprite no more than a metre tall. 'It's very dark in
here, so please come closer. This goddess is called Chamunda Chamunda
lives in graveyards. At her feet you can see human corpses that have
been pecked by birds and devoured by jackals.'
A large droplet of sweat from Enami's body coursed like a tear to
the floor which was dappled with gobs of candle-wax.
'Her breasts droop like those of an old woman. And yet she offers
milk from her withered breasts to the children who line up before her.
Can you see how her right leg has festered as though afflicted with
leprosy? Her belly has caved in from hunger, and scorpions have

139
stung her there. Enduring all these ills and pains, she offers milk
from her sagging breasts to mankind.'
Enami, who until an hour before had been joking pleasantly with
these tourists, suddenly screwed up his face. The sweat that trickled
down his cheeks could have been mistaken for tears. Mitsuko, Numada,
Kiguchi and Isobe were taken aback by this, but at the same time
they could not help but sense some of the feelings that Enami directed
towards these goddesses, whose forms resembled twisted roots.
'I love this image of Chamunda. I've never come to this city without
standing here in front of her statue.'
'I like it too,' Kiguchi unexpectedly announced with deep feeling.
'On the battlefields in Burma, I always felt as though death was close
at hand, and when I look at this gaunt statue now, I remember all the
soldiers who died in the rain. The war was . . . horrible. And all those
soldiers . . . they looked just like this.'
'She . . . she displays all the sufferings of the Indian people. All the
suffering and death and starvation that the people of India have had
to endure over many long years come out in this statue. She has con­
tracted every illness they have suffered through the years. She has
tolerated the poison of cobras and snakes. Despite it all, she . . . as she
pants for breath, she offers milk to mankind from her shrivelled breasts.
This is India. This is the India I wanted to show each of you.'
As though embarrassed by his own display of emotion, Enami
roughly wiped his sweat-soaked face with a large, dirty handkerchief.
He had explained this suffering goddess to his tourists with the claim
that he was explaining India to them, but in his own mind he was
recalling his own mother, who had raised him through many trials of
her own after she was abandoned by her husband.
'Then, unlike the other goddesses . . . is this one more like the Holy
Mother Mary of India?'
'You could say that. But unlike Mary, she is not pure and refined,
and she wears no fine apparel. Rather, she is ugly and worn with age,
and she groans under the weight of the suffering she bears. This statue
was carved in the twelfth century, but her sufferings have not changed
even today. This motherly Chamunda of India is quite unlike the Holy
Mother Mary of Europe/
Everyone listened in silence to Enami's explanation. Each was caught
up in his or her private thoughts.
'Shall we go?' Enami summarily urged the group. 'I'm sure the
others are tired of waiting for us.'

. 1 40
 As he set off walking, Isobe and Kiguchi carne up to him.
'Thank you,' Isobe said. 'That was worth seeing.'
Kiguchi added, 'Corning down to this underground chamber . . . I
feel that I understand for the first time why Sakyarnuni appeared in
this land.'
'Really?' A look of honest delight appeared on Enarni's face. 'If
that's how you feel, then it will have some meaning tomorrow when I
show you the spot where Buddha appeared to his first disciple after
completing his spiritual training.'
One step into the open and the bright sunlight slapped their fore­
heads. Inside the air-conditioned tour bus, the Sanjos and the other
women who had not gone into the cave were drinking chilled Coca­
Cola and coconut juice.
'How was it?' Sanjo asked.
'Just as sweaty as you see us looking.' Enarni had recovered his
earlier affability.
Sanjo laughed. 'That's why I didn't go in. After all, it's just a bunch
of dusty Buddhist statues, isn't it?'
'They're not Buddhist statues, they're goddesses.'
'It's all the same to me. Where are we going now?'
'To the sacred River Ganges.'
'I wanted to see the Rhine,' Sanjos bride guilelessly announced. 'I'll
bet it's not as hot there.'

'Here we are at last at the great mother Ganges.' Once he had caught
his breath in the air-conditioned vehicle, Enarni again took up his
microphone.
His words 'great mother' reminded those who had gone down into
the cavern of the goddess who endured the bites of poisonous snakes
and scorpions and, while afflicted with leprosy and hunger, offered
her milk to swarms of children. The mother of India. An image not of
a mother's plentitude and gentleness but of an old woman reduced to
skin and bones and gasping for breath. Despite it all, she was still a
mother.
'What we see today will be something of a prologue to tomorrow.
Tomorrow I want to set out just as the sunlight first breaks through
the clouds, but I'm bringing you here today for the benefit of those
who want to sleep in and not join our tour tomorrow.'
'Is it more interesting early in the morning?' Sanjo inquired loudly.
'It's not "interesting." It's holy. With the golden light of the sun

141
splitting the darkness as their signal, pilgrims who have gathered in
the city assemble at the many ghats. They vie with one another to
plunge into the great mother river. The maternal waters accept both
the living and the dead. That's what is meant by holy.'
'Is it true that they bathe right next to where the ashes of the dead
have been scattered?'
'It's true.'
'Ugh,' Sanjo's young wife said to him. 'I don't want to see anything
'
as filthy as that.'
'Fine, fine, you're welcome to stay behind in the bus. We can't have
you feeling ill.' Enami smiled and nodded, as though her feelings
were perfectly reasonable.
Sanjo, defending his wife, asked, 'Don't the Indians consider it un­
clean?'
'Of course not. As I've explained several times, the River Ganges to
the Hindu people is a holy, motherly river. For that reason they come
to this city, journeying many miles by train or on foot, in order one
day to become part of its great current. There, please look out of your
windows. An old ascetic with a long withered branch for a stick is
crossing at the intersection.'
The skinny old hermit, looking like a white-haired demon, was
swallowed up into the swarms of people.
'This is a city where people gather in order to die. There are many
roads that make their way here - the Panch Koshi Road, the Raja
Motichand Road, the Raja Bazar Road. Many pilgrims journey from
every point of the compass in order to die here. Look, you can see
buses and cars transporting them. Those who can't ride in the buses
and cars take their time walking here like that old hermit. There are
no roads like this in a country like Japan.' Enami emphasized the
words. 'None at all. None.'
A road travelled in order to die. The words reminded Kiguchi of the
Highway of Death in Burma. The sunken-cheeked faces of dead sol­
diers; the hordes of sick and wounded men collapsed and moaning on
the muddy road. The Highway he had walked along like a somnam­
bulist. Along that road _he had clung to the faint hope that, if he could
merely make it down that highway, he would survive. Did that old
hermit maintain the hope that if he could make his way to the Gan­
ges, he would be born again?
In the crowds of people Isobe saw a number of barefoot young
girls. One girl wound her way between the cows and sheep and dis-

1 42
appeared. Another girl stood in front of a fried food stall and watched
with hungry eyes as the proprietor held up a sweet cake with a pair of
chopsticks.
'Search for me.' Again he heard his wife's desperate ravings. 'Prom­
ise . . . promise!'
He had decided to speak to Enami and arrange to stay behind in
Varanas1 alone. According to the itinerary, the group was setting
out tomorrow to tour the Buddhist holy sites, beginning in Sar­
nath, where Sakyamuni had delivered his first sermon.
I'll find you . Just be patient. Isobe repeated in his mind the words
he had muttered innumerable times.
'Shall we go? Or would you rather not?' He could hear two women
whispering behind him.
'I'm going to have a look. I paid a lot of money to come on this
trip. It'd be a shame not to see it just so we can tell people about it.'
One after another the Japanese climbed out of the bus when it ar­
rived at the Dashashvamedha Ghat, where stairs descended into the
river. Only Mrs Sanjo remained in her seat.
In an instant begging girls surrounded them. The writhing children
who gestured as though putting something into their mouths, and the
leper girl who crawled along the ground and stietched out a fingerless
hand tugged at the sympathies of the Japanese tourists. Sanjo handed
out a coin and called for everyone to hear, 'Why don't they put these
kids into an institution?'
'Every Japanese who comes to India asks that same question,' Enami
responded with a smile. 'If these children are institutionalized, their
families will starve to death. They're a vital source of income for their
families. The crippled children and the girls with leprosy all capitalize
on their ailments to become worthy bread-winners.'
'This is an awful country. Who's the leader of this place?'
'You mean you don't know? It's the prime minister, Indira Gandhi
- even her name is reminiscent of the great mother Ganges. She's the
daughter of Nehru. They call her the mother of India.'
The buildings chaotically arrayed by the river, a jumble of shapes
and colours, were lodging-houses for pilgrims and pavilions and tem­
ples reserved for royalty. Between the buildings stood flower vendors
selling the genda blossoms that were tossed into the river.
After they threaded their way past these buildings, the great river
suddenly appeared before them.
Reflecting the rays of the afternoon sun, the broad river cut a gentle

1 43
curve as it flowed by. The surface of the water was a muddy grey and
the level of the water high, making it impossible to see to the bottom.
Pilgrims and pedlars still stood on the ghats. The speed of the current
was evident from the movement of a grey object floating on the sur­
face in the distance. When the tiny-looking object drew closer, it turned
out to be the bloated corpse of a grey dog. But no one on the ghats
paid it any attention. The holy river took not only humans, but all
living things in its embrace as it flowed away.
In the shallows, several men and women beat la�ndry against rocks
and hung it out to dry on ropes stretched along the shore. These were
outcasts known as dhobhis, whose lifelong trade was laundering. An
old Brahmin priest with a bald head and wearing glasses sat beneath
a wide umbrella waiting for the pilgrims on the stone steps leading to
the shore of the river. Beside the priest sat a man selling a vermilion
powder the colour of blood. The Brahmin priest would paint a small
circle on the foreheads of the Hindu worshippers and give them a
blessing.
Sanjo seemed to have completely forgotten his earlier anger and scorn,
and he scurried around with his prize camera, taking pictures of vari­
ous scenes.
'Mr Sanjo!' Enami hastily yelled to him. 'As we get closer to the
cremation grounds, you will see a number of bodies being carried to
the ghats. Please don't take any pictures of the bodies. You'll make the
families very angry.'
'They don't allow pictures of the bodies? I know that. That's why I
want to take them. As a photographer.'
'This is no joke. You simply must not do it. You'll make trouble for
everyone.'
As Enami had predicted, a group of men in a funeral cortege ap­
peared on the ghat. They had fashioned a litter from two poles some
three metres in length, wrapped with a pale-red cloth. What appeared
to be a dead body had been lashed to the litter with gold tape. They
laid the stretcher near the river bank. There they waited patiently for
their turn to come. First a swarm of flies, smelling death, gathered
round, followed soon J:?y a flock of crows which began pacing nearby.
But the mourners remained crouched by the river, and made no move
to drive the scavengers away.
The river, as always, silently flowed by. The river cared nothing
about the corpses that would eventually be burned and scattered into
itself, or about the unmoving male mourners who appeared to cradle

1 44
their heads in their arms. It was evident here that death was simply a
part of nature.
At a nearby ghat, five or six people were bathing in the river. The
lower parts of the men's bodies were wrapped in white cloths, while
the women wore saris of varied colours. As they soaked in the water,
they brought their hands together in prayer, rinsed their mouths and
washed their hair, then returned to the ghat. Some would bathe, then
rest on the stone steps, and again return to the river.
The sky grew slightly darker. The sun that had beaten against the
stone steps was slowly declining. But the river continued to flow, with
no change whatever.
'Those are the cremation grounds,' Enami pointed to the Manikamika
Ghat, where a plume of smoke as yellow as sulphur rose into the sky.
'The two- and three-storey buildings to the left are free lodgings for
the elderly and the incurably ill who have come to await death. As
soon as they die they are taken to the cremation grounds. Those too
poor to pay for the kindling are cast as they are into the river.'
'Do you think I could get a picture of the cremation grounds? Would
you ask them, Mr Enami, since I can't take any of the bodies?' Sanjo
seemed interested in nothing but his photographs, and his plea was
insistent, but Enami firmly shook his head.
'No. Absolutely not.'
'How about if I offered them some money?'
'Put yourself in the place of the mourning families who'd be photo­
graphed. It's an insult to the Hindu believers and to the deceased.'
Mitsuko and Isobe sat on the stone steps of the ghat listening to
Enami' s angry report.
'They're here on their honeymoon, and he leaves his wife in the bus
and can think of nothing but his photographs. It's unbelievable,' Isobe
remarked as he gazed at the milky surface of the river.
Mitsuko thought of how on her own honeymoon she had left her
husband in a Paris hotel and gone off to walk the forest of Les Landes
in search of her own private world.
'Couples like you and your wife are a rarity these days. Imagine
someone coming to a land like this in search of his dead wife.'
'But, after all, every one of the Indian people who come to dip in the
waters of this river believes in reincarnation. And aren't you . . . searching
for something in this city?'
'In my case it's a friend who's still alive. And it doesn' t matter to
me whether I see him or not.'

1 45
 'I see. What sort of work does this person do?'
'I hear he's become a Catholic priest.'
'A priest? A Catholic priest living in a city of Hindus?'
As a puzzled look passed over Isobe's face, they heard a conversa­
tion behind them between Enami and Numada.
'The ones who aren't cremated are the poor who don't have the
money to pay for the kindling, and children under the age of seven.
The corpses of the children are placed in reed boats, and the poor are
'
buried beneath the waters.'
'I see some people fishing there, too.'
'Yes. They serve those fish in the hotel restaurants here in town. Of
course we try to keep that a secret from the tourists. Well, shall we be
going? We'll come here again early tomorrow morning.'
All around them the sunlight had darkened, but the River Ganges
alone continued to flow slowly, indifferent to everything. To Numada
it seemed like the next world reserved for the dead. He resurrected in
his mind a fable he had written many years before.

Shinkichi's grandfather and grandmother had lived in a village by

the Yatsushiro Sea. His grandfather had died eight years before, but
in his vigorous days he had been known as a master squid-catcher,
and he was famed as a fisherman throughout the village. He had,
though, been very fond of his liquor, and Shinkichi's father had grum­
bled that drinking was what had killed him.
Shinkichi lived in Tokyo, and he seldom visited his grandfather's
house. Three years before, he had returned to the Ariake Sea for the
obon festival of the dead. During the day, an elder cousin taught him
how to swim in the glimmering Yatsushiro Sea, and at night they
took him out fishing. He could not believe how much fun he had
every day. When he looked out from the beach, the torches from the
squid-catching boats stretched out like a bridge of fire. On the night
of the Feast of Lanterns, his grandmother and kinsmen lit lanterns
and from their boats set them afloat into the sea.
All around them the candle-lit lanterns floated in the water.
'Your grandpa has �ecome a fish and lives in this sea,' his grand­
mother told Shinkichi with a serious face. This sea is the world where
we live after we die. When your grandma dies one day, I'll have them
cast my body into this sea, and I'll become a fish and be able to see
your grandpa again.'
His grandmother seemed to believe everything she told him. When

146
Shinkichi asked his cousin, 'Is tha t true?' the elder boy with a sober
look answered, 'Of course it's true. That's what everyone in the vil­
lage believes. My sister died when she was in elementary school, but
she's a fish now, and swims around at the bottom of this sea.'

Numada had written this fable as a tentative study while he was

still in college, but it had remained one of his favourites. He had gone
on to write that a large factory was built near the village, and that
waste from the plant had polluted the sea, afflicted the fish, and made
the people of the fishing village ill. But he had cut out that part, feel­
ing it was too painful a story for a fable. The villagers had com­
plained about the factory, not only because it discharged waste that
made them ill, but because it had destroyed the next world where their
ancestors and their dead parents and relatives and siblings were liv­
ing as fish, and where they too would one day be reborn. Numada
had wanted to include in his fable tha t journalists, who did not be­
lieve in a life to come, had emphasized in their reports of the problem
not these ephemeral concerns, but the problems of environmental pol­
lution and sickness.

147
 EIGHT

In Search of What
Was Lost

What had sounded like metal scratching against metal was the tele­
phone ringing next to her pillow. The piercing noise seemed like the
notification of some mishap. She stretched out her white ann and picked
up the receiver.
'Is this Miss Naruse? I'm very sorry. I know I shouldn't be calling
you at this hour.' It was the voice of their guide, Enami. 'Mr Kiguchi
has a fever. A lot of tourists get diarrhoea in India, so I gave him
some antibiotics I brought along, but they don't seem to have had
much effect.'
'I'm afraid I'm not a doctor.'
'Yes, I know that. But you worked at a hospital, didn't you? Would
you mind helping us?'
'Did you contact the reception desk?'
'The people there are useless. The girl on the night-shift knows ab­
solutely nothing, and_all she'll say is that she'll ring a doctor tomor­
row. I'm going to ring the university hospital immediately and have
them send a doctor here, but could you have a look at Mr Kiguchi
before he arrives?'
She dressed quickly and went out into the hallway. It was close to 3
a.m. and pitch-dark. A lizard clung to the wall as if it had been pasted

1 48
there. The din of insects outside sounded like the roar of a flood. On a
well-worn sofa by the reception desk Enami sat with his legs stretched
out, exhaustion oozing from his face as he dozed with his eyes open.
Huge mosquitoes clung here and there to the walls as though they
were part of an insect collection that had been hung there with pins.
The girl at the reception desk flicked through the pages of an old
magazine and yawned uninhibitedly.
'Ah!' Enami opened his eyes wide and jumped to his feet like a
spring-driven doll.
'It's not all that easy being a tour guide, is it?'
'This happens once in a while. But most of the time a ntibiotics fix
them.'
'What are his symptoms?'
The high fever is the worst of it. I thought it might be food poison­
ing. A lot of people get sick eating trout from the Ganges.'
With his slippers slapping noisily against his bare feet, Enami led
Mitsuko up the stairs. Kiguchi's room was on the second floor, in the
hallway directly opposite Mitsuko's.
'Mr Kiguchi, I'm going to run over immediately and get a doctor.'
Enami opened the door and turned on the lights. 'While I'm gone,
Miss Naruse says she'll stay with you. She's been a volunteer at a
hospital before, so that's a relief.'
Kiguchi was clutching both sides of his blanket and had buried his
face half beneath it, where he moaned, 'I'm sorry. Sorry for . the
trouble.'
His fever seemed very high, and his body trembled slightly. Even
in the dim lighting of the room, it was evident that his entire face was
bathed in sweat.
Enami's footsteps faded away at the end of the hallway, and Kiguchi
and Mitsuko were left alone in the room. The towels in the bathroom
seemed dirty somehow, so Mitsuko went to her room to bring her own
towels and some cologne back with her. When she returned, Kiguchi
was still shaking.
'Let me wipe the perspiration off for you.'
The heat of his fever and the smell of his sweat jabbed at Mitsuko's
nose. In a rush she remembered the body odours of all the patients
she had cared for as a volunteer. She knew just how to move him, and
just where to mop his body. The aroma of the cologne helped some­
what to obliterate the body odours and the radiated heat.
Tm sorry, ma'am.'

149
 'Don't worry.'
'I contracted malaria when I was in the army. They cured it with
quinine, but maybe it's got me again.'
As she wiped his bony chest, Mitsuko thought about the disease
that Kiguchi had mentioned. Chills and shivers assailed him once
again, arid his teeth began to chatter even though he was wrapped in
a blanket.
'They don't use quinine any more. Now they treat malaria with a
much more effective drug called Primaquine. I' m quite sure the In­
dian doctor will know about Primaquine.'
'Ma'am . . . .' When Kiguchi opened his mouth, she could see that he
had removed his dentures. 'Do you think the doctor will come?'
Mitsuko smiled and nodded. This non-committal smile was the look
she gave in the hospital as her 'imitation of love'. 'Close your eyes
and go to sleep. Everything will be fine. I'm right here beside you.'
She took the ailing man's hand and stroked the back of it. This, too,
had been one of her regular 'imitations of love' when she worked as a
volunteer. Kiguchi surrendered himself to her ministrations.
About a half an hour later, they heard the faint hum of an automo­
bile at the edge of the garden. Mitsuko listened carefully.
'It's a car. It must be Mr Enami with the doctor. That was faster
than I expected.'
Kiguchi wearily closed his eyes. The rays of an automobile's head­
lights scurried across the window like a revolving lantern.
Mitsuko opened the door to the room and waited for the two men.
The doctor who scampered into the room looked to be a young Indian
about thirty, wearing rimless glasses like Gandhi's. He pressed his
stethoscope against Kiguchi's chest. He apparently mistook Mitsuko
for the patient's wife and called her 'Mrs' before asking whether the
taking of blood and administering of injections ran contrary to her
husband's religious beliefs. He spoke the Queen's English, so Mitsuko
supposed that he must have studied in London.
'Is it malaria?' Enami asked.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, gave Kiguchi a shot to lower
his fever, then drew �. sample of blood in a small test-tube. Then he
signalled Enami with his eyes and walked out into the hallway.
Eventually Enami, blinking eyes that were bloodshot from exhaus­
tion, motioned to Mitsuko to join him in the hall.
'What a mess. If it's some awful contagious disease or malaria,
he'll have to be put into the hospital. But tonight I'm supposed to take

1 50
the group to Buddh-Gaya. Of course I can't just leave Mr Kiguchi like
this, and if he ends up in the hospital, I can have a Japanese from one
of our contact companies in Calcutta come over to stay with him, but
he wouldn't make it here by tonight.'
'But surely you've had unexpected problems like this before?'
'We have, but they've all been people with diarrhoea or stomach
cramps, which have been cured with antibiotics. This is my first run­
in with malaria.'
After a moment of silence, Mitsuko asked, 'Would you like me to
stay here with him?'
'Do you mean it?' Enami eyes widened. But it was clear he had
inwardly hoped she would make the offer. 'It would really help me
out if you could do that. You can speak the language and everything.'
'My English isn' t all that reliable. But I'll manage until a Japanese
can get here from Calcutta.'
'I really appreciate this. Thank you. I promise we'll be back by day
after tomorrow, so two days is all you'd have to do. Naturally I'll get
in touch with my company and have them give you a discount on
your expenses in India.'
'You really don't need to worry about that. Pristine places like Buddh­
Gaya where Sakyamuni attained enlightenment really don't suit my
fancy. I feel much more at home amid the vile smells of this city. I'm
actually gra teful you'll let me stay on here.'
'I' m going to take you at your word on this.'
She flashed her customary smile. But this was not the smile she
used to conceal her true feelings. Since her arrival in India she had
gradually developed an interest not in the India where Buddhism was
born, but in the India of Hinduism, in which purity and defilement,
holiness and obscenity, charity and brutality mingled and coexisted .
She was grateful for even one extra day to stay beside the river where
all things intermixed rather than having to go see the sites that had
been sanctified by the Buddha.
Tm going back to keep an eye on Mr Kiguchi,' she mumbled. 'You've
got to take everyone to the Ganges early this morning, haven't you?
You'd better get some sleep.'
'Aren't you coming with us to the Ganges, Miss Naruse?'
'I can't leave Mr Kiguchi in this condition . . . .'
When she was left to herself, she sat down beside Kiguchi, who
was sleeping like the dead. She peered down at his toothless, moronic
face. It was strange. She was looking into the face of an old man she

151
hadn't even known two weeks before, and passing the night with
him. This deathlike Indian night, a night that in Buddhism would be
called the darkness of the soul. A night lacquered in a black so abso­
lute it would be unthinkable in Japan.
She suddenly recalled a scene from Therese Desqueyroux. It was the
night Therese tended her ailing husband Bernard. It had been a night
just like tonight, without even a ray of light shining, without a sound
to be heard, a pitch-black night in Argelouse. As she stared at her
p
husband's sleeping face, Therese had been gri ped by a dark im­
pulse.
It was a scene Mitsuko was fond of. It was the same impulse she
had felt not only tonight but on her honeymoon as she had studied
her husband's sleeping face. The face of a man who was a paragon of
uprightness, a man who cared for nothing but his work, his cars and
his game of golf. Every time she stared into that face, she thought of
that scene from Therese Desqueyroux. Those pages she had read over
and over again, those pages wherein she had discovered a reflection
of something dark within herself.
She had no idea what kind of man this old Kiguchi was. Did he
have a wife? What sort of life had he lived in his youth? Why had he
come by himself to India? From New Delhi to Varanasl, nothing
about the old man had aroused her interest. But as she looked down
at this uninteresting old man's sleeping face, a feeling identical to
that of Therese flickered across her mind, though for only an in­
stant. Something destructive lurking in the depths of her heart, some­
thing she shared in common with the goddess KaiT of Hinduism . . .
'Gaston!' Kiguchi moaned in a delirious nightmare. 'Gaston! Gaston!'
Mitsuko had no idea what he was talking about. She wiped the
sweat from the old man's head with a towel. She realized that his
fever had dropped considerably from two hours before. At the same
time, she herself felt the heavy weariness of living come over her, and
she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

She had no idea how long she slept, but Mitsuko was awakened by
the sound of several people scurrying along the hallway. The sun had
already come up, and a light redolent of the heat of afternoon was
already shining through the window; she could hear the chirping con­
versations of birds from the hotel garden. The sick man, his mouth
open, slept as though in a sta te of abstraction. She put her hand on
his forehead. The fever had almost completely abated, and only the

1 52
smell of sweat lingered like the aftermath of a storm.
She tiptoed out of the room, and in the hallway ran into Enami
coming towards her with two other women.
We've just come back from the Ganges. Thank you so much. When
we set out a couple of hours ago, I peeked into the room, but you
seemed to be sleeping, so I didn't invite you along. You've really been
a great help.'
Enami's eyes were still blurred with exhaustion, but the two women
looked refreshed. 'You've had a rough time of it, haven't you, Miss
Naruse?' one of them said in an agitated voice. 'But I think maybe
you were better off not coming. The river bank was littered with dog
and cow droppings, and the smell of them burning the bodies - there
was nothing solemn about it for me, I tell you. I felt sick. These Hin­
dus actually do rinse their mouths and wash their heads right next to
where the ashes of the dead are floating.'
'I know I've said this before, but there are people who are drawn to
India by seeing that, and those who absolutely hate the place.' Once
again Enami played the apologist for India. 'Mr Numada and Mr
Isobe were both very moved.'
We saw a Japanese Hindu there, too,' both women were eager to
relate. 'He had that white cloth round his middle just like the other
Hindus - didn't he, Mr Enami?'
1t's called a dhoti. What the women wear is called a sari.'
'He was helping carry the bodies of the Hindus to the cremation
ground. I was really surprised.'
1 was stunned myself. At first I thought he was some young hippie
with an India fixation, but he said he was no mere tourist.'
'You talked to him?'
'Yes, a little. What surprised me even more is he said he's a Catho­
lic priest. When I asked him why a Christian father was dressed up
like a Hindu, he said that since he was living in India it felt more
natural to wear what the people here wear. He was carrying the body
of a pauper who had collapsed in the street.'
Mitsuko shifted her eyes away from the three and was silent for a
moment. Finally she asked in a hoarse voice, 'What was this fellow's
name?'
'Hmm, he didn't tell us . . . . But he did say that he's living in an
ashram here in the dty. I've been here any number of times, but that's
the first time I've run into a Japanese like that.'
' As hram?' Mitsuko's voice was still rasping.

1 53
 'It's the Hindi word for monastery.'
It was O tsu. The man had to be Otsu. Mitsuko struggled to contain
her feelings.
'Do you think you might know him, Miss Naruse?'
She turned her face away and nodded, 'I think . . . he was a class­
mate of mine . . . in college.'
Enami was silent for a moment, sensing something unusual, but
then he changed the subject and asked whethet; Mitsuko had eaten
breakfast.
'No. I'm going to have something in a while. But I want to take
another look at Mr Kiguchi before I go.'
As she walked back to Kiguchi's room, she contemplated the feel­
ings stirring inside her.
Wherever he went, Otsu had realized nothing but setbacks and fail­
ures, and now he was in this place transporting corpses to the funeral
pyres. 'If you don't like the word "God", then you can call him On­
ion if you wish.' The words O tsu had spoken in a throaty, pained
voice along the shores of the River Saone crackled in her ears like
burning embers. The man was still obstinately living for the sake of
his Onion. For something Mitsuko had been unable to find in her
own life.
She looked into Kiguchi's room, returned to her own room and washed
her face, and went down to the dining-room. The other Japanese tour­
ists had finished breakfast and were strolling in the garden or wan­
dering the streets during their free time until noon. An Indian man
scurried around cleaning up the dirty dishes and barking orders to a
young busboy. In the dining-room there was only one other guest,
who sat puffing at a cigarette and staring out of the window at the
trees that intertwined in a lacy mesh.
'Good morning,' Mitsuko greeted him.
'You're Miss Naruse, aren't you? My name is Numada. I under­
stand you're staying behind to look after Mr Kiguchi.'
'Yes, but thanks to that - or maybe I should say I'm doing it be­
cause I've taken a liking to this city.'
'Is that so? As a matter of fact, I got permission from Mr Enami to
remain here too. I made up my mind this morning when we went to
see the Ganges. I won't make any trouble for you.' Numada smiled
genially. 'I write children's stories, and one of them is set by the
Yatsushiro Sea in Kyushu. The villagers believe that when they die,
they all become fish in the sea and continue to live there. The sea is

1 54
the next world to them, just as the River Ganges is to the Hindus.'
Mitsuko decided she would have nothing to worry about from a
man who could become so absorbed in such a story. 'I'm relieved
you're staying here at the hotel,' she responded as she took a sip of
the Darjeeling tea the khitmutgar had brought.

Happily, no malarial protozoa were found in Kiguchi's blood. The

young doctor telephoned Enami just before noon and reported that the
high fever was probably the result of the heat, the old man's exhaus­
tion and some bacteria, that there was no need for hospitalization, and
that he should be fine after a few days' rest.
Mitsuko was still concerned.
'I wonder if the diagnosis is correct.'
'Of course it is. I killed myself getting them to call the doctor on
duty at the university hospital in Varanasi This means you can
rejoin the tour, Miss Naruse.'
'No, I'm going to stay here. I think Mr Kiguchi will feel happier if
I stay with him.'
This is ridiculous. Mr Isobe and Mr Numada and the Sanjos are
saying exactly the same thing. Mrs Sanjo says she's seen all she wants
to see of India.'
But Enami concluded that it would be best for Mitsuko to stay, on the
outside chance that something might happen to the old man. That way
he could manage without sending for another Japanese from Calcutta.
At two o'clock the bus arrived to take the tourists to Buddh-Gaya.
Isobe, Numada and Mitsuko came to the lobby to see everyone off. In
the garden of the abruptly emptied hotel only the swing twisted with
a creaking sound in the tepid wind.
'It got lonely here all of a sudden, didn't it?' Isobe muttered as he
listened to the creaking swing. In the deserted garden even the chirp­
ing of insects subsided, and the only noise was a faint bustle from
Cantonment Station far in the distance.
'What's happened to Mr and Mrs Sanjo?'
'Hmm, I don't know.'
'What are you going to do now?'
' 1 . . . ' Isobe stammered a bit. 'I'm . . . going to go out for a while.'
.

'To the Ganges?' Numada asked innocently. 'Would you mind if I

come with you?'
'No, actually . . . I've got a silly little personal matter to attend to,
and I'd rather go by myself.'

1 55
 Mitsuko, who could guess what this was about, winked at Nurnada.
'Mr Numada, if Mr Kiguchi seems to be doing all right, would you
mind accompanying me to the river?'
'I'd be happy to. I've really taken a liking to that river. I could look
at it any number of times.'
The three went up to the second floor, where Mitsuko and Numada
looked in on Kiguchi.
Isobe unlocked his door, sat down on the hard, still unmade bed,
and turned his eyes towards the brightly lit window. A young woman
named Rajini Puniral in Kamloji village. The girl he had learned about
from the University of Virginia.
Since coming to India, Isobe had started remembering his wife more
frequently than he had while still in Japan. Even those recollections
were of thoroughly insignificant moments from their daily lives to­
gether.
He remembered once when he was putting on his shoes before he
set out to work, and his wife had called out from behind him, 'Will
you be late tonight?'
'No, I'll be home for dinner.'
'I thought I'd throw some fish and vegetables together for dinner.'
Whatever you like, it doesn't matter to me.'
His memories were all of such mornings, of such trivial conversa­
tions between husband and wife.
Or once when his wife was sewing with nimble hands. With one
eye on a go magazine, he arranged the stones on the board and then
heaved a sigh.
'It's hopeless.'
'What's hopeless?'
'I've been playing go for five years now, and I still can't get my
first-grade certificate. At lunch today I played a game with Ishikawa,
and he whipped me even though he's only been at it three years. I
suppose it's pointless trying to learn once you're old.'
'But you enjoy it, don't you?' She stopped working on her point lace
and tried to console him with empty phrases. 'It's not a question of
whether you're good or bad. It ought to be enough if you're having a
good time.'
Hackneyed conversations between husband and wife that he had
not once recalled while his wife was alive; moments together that had
been neither happy nor unhappy. Why did these incidents come back
to him, clutching almost painfully at his chest, as he sat this after-

1 56
noon in his hotel room in a distant land? His wife had been an ordi­
nary housewife, and he had been a mediocre husband. While she was
alive, his wife had suppressed her feelings, but just before her death
she had shown him a side he had never seen before.
Isobe changed into his track shoes and left his room with his key, a
map and his camera.
While he waited for the taxi, he asked the hotel manager how to get
to Kamloji village. The bearded, dark-faced manager had evidently
already been notified by Enami, and he flashed Isobe an 'OK' sign
and said, 'I'll tell the driver where to go.'
The taxi arrived. When Isobe sa t down on the hot seat, a painful
throbbing shook his body. While his wife was alive, he had never
given reincarnation a thought. But as a result of her screams, the words
'rebirth' and 'reincarnation' had flashed before him as though a large
automobile had suddenly darted up before his eyes, changing both
the direction and the destination of his life.
And yet Isobe remained sceptical. Even after he got in touch with
the University of Virginia and received the letter from the thoughtful
scholar, his doubts had still not dissipated, and all that was certain in
his mind was the voice of his wife. All he could believe in was the
love for his wife that lay buried in his heart. And if someone had
suddenly stepped in front of him now and asked hiin if he would
care to marry should there be an afterlife, his wife's name would have
surfaced on his lips as his mate of choice without a moment's hesitation.

Mitsuko rang Kiguchi in his room.

'Yes?' his lifeless voice quickly responded.
'How are you feeling?'
'Oh, it's you? Thanks to you my fever has dropped and I'm feeling
much better. You've really been a great help.'
'That's wonderful. How's your appetite?'
'Fine. For lunch Mr Enami had room service send up some soup
and a sandwich. I haven't touched the sandwich yet, though. I under­
stand the doctor will be coming back to see me tonight.'
'Do you think it would be all right if I went out into the city for a
little while? I'll phone you from there, of course.'
'I'm nothing but trouble for you. But I'm just fine, so you go ahead
and go out.'
She got ready and went down to the lobby. Numada was waiting
there with a sketchbook on his lap.

1 57
 'Mr Kiguchi seems to be feeling much better.'
'I'm glad to hear it.'
'Would you mind waiting while I make one more phone call?'
Mitsuko had the assistant at the reception desk telephone the Catholic
church in Varanas1. When she took the receiver and put it to her
ear, the line rang endlessly and no one answered, until finally the
hoarse voice of an old woman responded in Hindi. Mitsuko handed
the telephone to the assistant, but the only information she could
obtain was that there was no Japanese named ' O tsu at the church,
that the English-speaking missionaries were all out for the day, and
the location of the church. Mitsuko had to abandon her plan.
After they got into the taxi, Numada, who had been listening be­
hind her, asked, 'Are you looking for someone?'
'This morning, when you went with everyone to see the river, didn't
you run into a Japanese man?'
'A tourist?'
'No, a man working at the cremation grounds.'
'Oh, the Japanese fellow who was dressed like the Hindus.'
'I think he was someone I knew when I was at college. He said
then he wanted to become a priest.'
'So you're going to the river to search for him?'
'I thought he might still be at the cremation grounds.'
'You were rather close to him, I take it?'
Numada's innocent question made Mitsuko flush. She recalled with
vivid clarity how O tsu's head had prodded between her breasts.
She abruptly changed the subject. 'It's quite a smell, isn't it?'
'What is?'
'Things that don' t even smell in other countries. The smell of hu­
manity.'
'Do you find it disagreeable?'
'Not disagreeable. I like it. It's a smell that doesn't tire me out. On
the other hand, if you go to somewhere like Europe . . . I don't know
much about the place, but that's how France was for me. After three
or four days, I was worn out.'
'Really? I wonder why.' Numada studied Mitsuko with a blend of
curiosity and delight ·in his eyes.
'Well, after all, everything in France is so neatly ordered, there's
nothing disjointed about the place. There's just not enough chaos.
Walking around the place de la Concorde or the gardens of Versailles,
I get exhausted by it before I've had a chance to think how beautiful

1 58
all that systematic orderliness is. Compared with that, I'm much more
at home with the confusion here in India, with the way that so many
different elements are combined in one scene, with the statues of the
Hindu goddesses who mingle good with evil.'
'Westerners hate chaos. You prefer disorder, do you, Miss Naruse?'
'It's not really a matter for debate. It's just a question of like or
dislike.' Thanks to the finally cool breeze blowing through the win­
dow and the guileless look in Numada's eyes, Mitsuko inadvertently
loosened up and joked, 'I'm just a chaotic woman who doesn't under­
stand herself very well.'
'Uh-huh,' Numada responded vaguely.
As they had the previous day, they entered the noisy city beneath
the evening sun. The rays of the setting sun bounced off the gilded
plates and pots stacked in front of the shops; patrons and rickshaws
formed queues before the large marquee at an Indian cinema; a flock
of crows perched like notes of music on an electric wire; and sheep
and cows, the bells round their necks clanging, brought traffic to a
halt.

What he had finally come to understand after his wife's death was
the bond uniting a husband and wife. The connection that brought
two people together to become lifelong companions from amidst the
countless numbers of men and women in the world. Most certainly
such encounters were accidental, but Isobe now had the feeling that
those ties had existed even before birth.
A row of laurel fig trees planted along one side of the white, dry
road shuttled past the window of the taxi. The vehicle kicked up dust.
Fields of wheat beyond the line of trees. A pair of vultures perched on
the fence of a broken-down farmhouse, and in the fields a large black
water-buffalo was slowly led along by a peasant. It was a country
scene that could be found anywhere in India.
Isobe was absorbed in memories of his wife.
Their first trip together, to Hokkaido to celebrate their twentieth anni­
versary. They had decided against flying and booked a sleeper on the
train that went through the Tohoku region. That summer evening as
they pulled out of Ueno Station, tree leaves sparkled as they blinked
by the train window, and the silhouettes of the mountains against the
sky as it turned a madder-red colour were beautiful. When he glanced
in her direction, his wife was smiling as she gazed at the distant
mountain range. She said nothing, but he was sure she was happy to

7 59
be able to travel alone with her husband for the first time since their
honeymoon. But for Isobe, it was more embarrassing than he could
endure, and he stood up and went to the buffet car to get a drink.
When he came back, the smile still lit up her face, and he softly yapped
at her, 'Hey, go and buy yourself something to drink.' Prosaic mem­
ories of this sort bubbled up one after another, then disappeared.
The taxi, rocking fiercely along the bumpy road, passed through
several villages. Every village had a communal well, and around each
well women with pots or buckets washed their hair or their feet, while
in a teetering shanty a man was giving haircuts. Barefoot children
scampered around the well.
In a village like this, exposed to the sun, his wife had been reborn -
the mere thought made him feel as though his chest were being squeezed
with pliers. His wife was among the naked children bounding around
the insanitary well. He couldn't believe it. It was all like a dream, and
Isobe clenched the hand that held his handkerchief, wondering what
foolishness he was engaged in.
'Turn back,' he was about to tell the driver, who stared silently
ahead as he drove. But as the words that stuck in his throat tried to
press their way past his lips, the driver, as though Isobe's feelings
had aroused him, suddenly turned round and shouted 'Kamloji!
Kamloji!', pointing ahead through the clouds of dust. They were about
to arrive in Kamloji.
The landscape ahead was just the same as every village they had
passed through, with rows of laurel figs and crows circling over wheat­
fields where farmers dragged water-buffalo behind them. The fierce
sun before evening held everything under its mighty sway.
He closed his eyes and tried to hear his wife's voice. For some
reason, her final words that had sounded so clearly in his ears until
that morning would not come back to him.
Spraying dust, the taxi came to a stop beside a well. Naked children
had congregated here too, and mothers and their elder daughters, their
saris soaked, poured water from pots on to their heads. They watched
with uneasy eyes as the driver and Isobe got out of the taxi that had
ground to a halt in front of them, and the children began to stretch
.
out their hands to beg for money.
One of the young girls had dark-black eyes and hair. She stood in
front of Isobe and motioned as if to put something into her mouth.
'Rajini?' Isobe took out a piece of paper and mouthed the Hindi
name Enami had written down for him. 'Rajini?'

1 60
 The girl vigorously shook her head. But she continued to hold out
her hand.
'Rajini! Rajini! Rajini!' The children imitated Isobe and began to
chant. But they appeared not to understand anything. A feeling of
sorrow spurted up in Isobe's chest, and he felt like one defeated in the
battle of life.

'What have you enjoyed most on this trip?'

'Me?' Mitsuko paused for a moment. 'Most of all the Ganges, and
then the image of the goddess Chamunda we saw in that dark, swel­
tering cave. And I liked what Mr Enami had to say about her. Re­
member how the sweat covered his whole face and dripped down on
to the floor?'
She thought of the dust-laden image of the goddess, whose body
was twisted in agony like the tangled roots of trees. In New Delhi,
Mitsuko had been moved by the image of the goddess Kall, who
combined mercy with brutality, but what she had enjoyed most
about this city was that twenty-minute interval when she had endured
the heat and the stifling air of the cavern.
In addition to the children today on the roads near the ghats, lepers
who had lost all their fingers were lined up to beg. Men and women
with their stubs of hands and their decaying skin covered with filthy
rags called out to Numada and Mitsuko in wailing voices.
'They're all human!' Numada could bear it no longer and cried out.
'These people . . . they're all human like us.'
Mitsuko did not want to reply. In her heart she could hear a voice
saying, Just what is it we tourists can do for them ? The cheap sym­
pathy of Numada and the Sanjos irrita ted Mitsuko. She no longer
wanted imitations of love. She wanted real love and nothing less.
The scene at the ghat was the same as yesterday: long-haired Indi­
ans, their dhotis d ripping with water, received blessings from a monk
seated beneath a broad umbrella. As they approached the funeral pyres,
they saw a body, swathed head to foot in a black cloth, lying on the
ground. Another corpse was just being consumed within the flames.
Stray brown dogs and an ominous flock of vultures, on the prowl for
any flesh that might survive the fire, peered at the scene from a dis­
tance.
'It's the body of an old woman, isn' t it?' Numada mumbled as he
looked at the gaunt legs and ankles. He could not see the face for the
flames. Mitsuko compared this old woman's life with that of the

161
goddess Chamunda. Like the goddess, she had suffered and perse­
vered in this life, and after suckling her children with her withered
breasts she had died. And Otsu lifted such people on to his back as
though shouldering a cross and brought them here to the river. . . .
'Can you see him?'
'Who?'
'My friend. The Japanese you ran into this morning.'
'Let me look. No, I can't spot him anywhere.'
'
'I suppose not.'
'He's a priest, isn't he? Why don't you go to that church you phoned
a while ago?'
Suddenly she thought of Isobe. Where was he at this moment? Had
he been able to find the girl in that village described in the letter? Just
as she was searching for Otsu here in this city, at the same hour Isobe
was searching for his dead wife.
'Mr Numada, do you believe in reincarnation?'
'Me? I'm sorry to say . . . my real feeling right now is that I have no
idea.'
'That's just how I feel. But there are many things about life we
never understand.'
'What do you mean?'
'I've been thinking about what my friend does here in this city.
From the viewpoint of any ordinary person, my friend has lived a
really pointless existence . . . but since I've come here, I've started to
think maybe it hasn't been so pointless after all.'

No matter how many times she pressed the bell of the church, there
was no response. About the time she decided that to ring the bell any
longer would be the height of discourtesy, she heard a sound like
wooden clogs dragging along the ground, and the door opened. An
old Caucasian priest dressed in a white habit stared back at her with
a stem expression.
'Otsu? He's not here.' When he heard the name Otsu, a look more of
disapproval than of confusion clouded the old priest's already intran­
sigent-looking face. .
'I was a friend of his at college.'
'I know nothing about him.'
'Do you know where he might be?'
'No.'
'He is here in the city, isn't he?'

1 62
 'I think so, but I know nothing more. We take no responsibility for
him.'
The headstrong look on the aged priest's face was reminiscent of an
old sheriff in a Western movie who strides around defending the law.
He spoke in the way a law-enforcing sheriff would speak, bridling
his displeasure as he discussed a man who had broken the law. He
quickly shut the door.
The setting sun wanly bathed the wall facing the church. Two black
mongrels rifled through the garbage at the base of the wall. Mitsuko
felt as though she had been cast out. But it wasn't her, it was O tsu
who had been cast out. It was clear from the old Western-sheriff priest's
tone of voice that he harboured no kind feelings towards O tsu. Just as
he had not been able to fit smoothly into the community of religious
at Lyon, he had no doubt committed some blunder here as well.
'Did you find out where he is?' Numada stood waiting for her in
front of the taxi.
She shook her head. 'No luck.'
'I've been talking to our taxi-driver while I waited for you. I asked
him if he knew of any Japanese who carried corpses to the cremation
ground at the Ganges. He said he knew nothing about such a man,
but he knows an Indian married to a Japanese woman who runs a
boarding-house nearby, and he says we might find something out if
we ask there.'
'What's it called?'
'He says it's the Kumiko House. A lot of young Japanese travellers
stay there, he says.'
'I wonder if I should contact them.'
'Why don't we have lunch at a hotel around here, and you could
ring the Kumiko House from there?'
They asked the driver the name of the closest deluxe hotel, and he
answered 'Clark's Hotel' as though he were repeating a memorized
speech. As the taxi navigated its way through the swirling mobs of
people and cows and rickshaws, ahead of them they suddenly heard
an explosion of band music. It was joined by shouting and laughing
voices, and cars honked their horns repeatedly.
'Marriage. Marriage.' The driver broke into a smile and explained
to Numada and Mitsuko. He told them there was a traffic jam because
a large wedding reception was being held at the hotel just ahead of
them.
'Can you get through?' Numada asked worriedly.

7 63
 The response that bounded back to them was the phrase they had
heard many times over in India: 'No problem.'
Despite his answer, however, the taxi did not budge an inch after
five, then ten minutes.
'What's the name of this hotel?' Numada finally asked impatiently.
With an indifferent look the driver repeated the name of the hotel
he had previously given them: 'Clark's Hotel.'
Numada and Mitsuko looked at one another and broke into laugh-
'
ter.
'I never know whether they're serious, or whether they're making a
fool of me.'
'That's just another part of India. Anyway, why don't we go and
have a look at an Indian wedding?'
They abandoned the taxi and began walking along the street dogged
with cars, feeling a bit light-hearted. In front of the hotel, where the
trees had been strung with light bulbs that made them look like Christ­
mas trees, the band played, its drum thumping and its trumpets bray­
ing. Young men in dinner-jackets and women dressed in lavish silk
saris with red marks on their foreheads were swallowed one after an­
other into the hotel.
'This is a wedding for the wealthy class, isn't it?' Numada muttered.
'It's a world apart from the people we saw on the banks of the river.'
Mitsuko turned to a woman beside her dressed in a bright sari and
asked, 'What is everyone waiting for?'
'The groom is about to arrive on a white horse.' The young woman,
a smile gracing her round, dimpled cheeks, responded in a crisp Queen's
English.
'A white horse?'
'Yes. Here the groom comes to his bride riding a white horse. It's
one of the beautiful customs of our country.'
After a break the band exploded into sound once again, and young
men dressed in suits swarmed in from the street with cheers and ap­
plause.
Finally the groom appeared astride a white horse, his head wrapped
in a red turban. He dismounted awkwardly from the horse, which
was jittery because of "the band music, and lifted both his arms into
the air like the victor in an athletic contest. The guests who surrounded
him took white and red congratulatory flowers from baskets and tossed
them at him.
'Are you tourists?' The round-faced, dimpled young woman turned

1 64
cordial eyes towards Mitsuko. 'You're Japanese, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'Is this the first time you've seen an Indian wedding? Come inside
with me. There's a party in the hotel garden.'
. 'I haven't been invited. And I'm here with a friend.'
'On happy occasions here in India you can enter without an invita­
tion.'
Mitsuko finally persuaded a shy and hesitant Numada to join her,
and they went out into the hotel garden. There too the trees had been
decorated with light bulbs, and the whiteness of the tables laden with
sweetmeats and fruit stung their eyes. On a hastily constructed stage
three girls twisted their arms and legs sensuously as they danced.
They were accompanied by four musicians who played on wooden
instruments.
After the dimpled woman introduced Numada and Mitsuko to some
of her friends, the two were quickly surrounded by friendly young
people who asked, 'Do you find this interesting?'
'Yes, very.'
'Because it's so different from a Japanese wedding, I suppose.'
'No, that's not it.' Mitsuko was gripped by her usual urge to be
perverse. 'It's because the wedding is so Indian.'
'Aha! '
The young people circling her looked delighted, but Mitsuko pro­
ceeded to flip a spitball of sarcasm into their happy faces.
'I'm fascinated because I've just been down by the Ganges, where I
met all kinds of children. They lined up and held their hands out to
me. And now just three hours later . . .' She groped for the words in
English, which she did not speak nearly as fluently as she spoke
French. But it would be enough if she got her meaning across. ' . . .
I'm here a t a splendid, luxurious party with people of a completely
different class.'
The socially agreeable smiles disappeared from the faces of the beauti­
fully attired young people. Their faces quivered, and they began to
jabber amongst themselves. One young man wearing glasses stepped
forward and began to speak in ministerial tones.
'It would seem, madam, that you are critical of our caste system.'
'I'm not critical. I'm simply surprised at the enormous difference
between classes.'
'Allow me to explain it to you.' He began to sound even more like
a minister. Or perhaps like a young lawyer in an American movie.

1 65
'Are you familiar with the name of Dr Ambedkar?'
'No.'
'He helped draft the Constitution of India, and became Minister of
Justice for independent India. The constitution he wrote abolishes the
religious class distinctions of the past. I think you probably know
this, but our beloved Mahatma Gandhi called the outcasts harijan,
which means children of God.'
The oratorical English was difficult for Mitsuko, but she understood
the gist of what the man was saying. As she watched his mouth move,
she suddenly remembered something Enami had let slip: The worst
thing about Indian intellectuals is that, in spite of their arrogance and
the emptiness of their long-winded speeches, they're never lacking in
the pride category.'
'Some of the harijan are now serving as government officials. Some
are working at universities.'
'I see.'
'We often hear questions like yours from foreign visitors. But India
is in the process of moving forward. Have you read the letters ex­
changed between Nehru and our current prime minister, Indira Gandhi?
They became an international best-seller, so I'm sure they were trans­
lated into Japanese.'
'I think they were a best-seller in Tokyo, too, but I haven't read
them.'
'You must read them. In the book, Nehru writes to his daughter
Indira that Asia is presently controlled by Europe, but that originally
the civilization of Asia was far more advanced. He said it is the mis­
sion of India to restore that former glory.'
The young man's simple-minded loquaciousness was annoying. Her
eyes searched for Numada, but he was nowhere to be found among
the multicoloured saris and dinner-jackets of the guests.
'What do you think of Indira Gandhi as a woman?'
'I have no knowledge of Indian politics.'
'She is the mother of India. The many conflicts and contradictions
between India's various religions and various peoples are held in check
by her womanly gentleness and strength.'
'I'm sorry, I have to iook for a friend. Thank you for all your help­
ful explanations.'
'It's a pleasure for us to be able to clear up your misunderstanding.'
Mitsuko did not swallow his reasoning. In the young man's vacu­
ous rhetoric Mitsuko had sniffed out the aroma she found most dis-

- 1 66
distasteful, the spoiled-fish stench of hypocrisy. The goddess Kall
combined mercy and maliciousness, but there was no hypocrisy in
her. Suffering a nd illness and love were intertwined like tree roots
in the goddess Chamunda, but there was nothing hypocritical about
her. Mitsuko loved the India she saw in the goddesses KaiT and
Chamunda and in the River Ganges, but she could not bring her­
self to appreciate this young man's sermon.
Smiles of relief returned to the faces of the young people in the
circle with their dark, healthy skins and their socially sanctioned gen­
tility.
Would you like some punch?' The dimpled young woman returned,
like a woman gingerly coming back to search through the ruins of a
city ravaged by war.
'Thanks.' Once again Mitsuko took a swipe. 'But I prefer strong
liquor to punch. I have to go and look for a friend.'
She went back into the hotel and found Numada staring lifelessly
at the show windows along the row of souvenir shops.
'I finally escaped. Let's get out of here.'
'You a ttracted quite a throng. You were a big hit, Miss Naruse.'
'I had to listen to them going on and on about the Indian Constitu­
tion. It was as insipid as the taste of their punch.'
Numada couldn't catch what she meant, but he good-naturedly re­
marked, 'I phoned the Kumiko House.'
'Really? And?' There was unexpected excitement in her voice. 'Did
you find anything out?'
'Yes.' Numada hesitated a moment. 1t seems as though your friend . . .
he frequents some pretty shady parts of the city. They said we'd find
him if we went there.'
'Shady parts? What does he do there?'
'I don't know. What do you want to do? Do you want to go there?'
'I'm tired.' Mitsuko gave vent to her irritation as she sighed. This
afternoon she felt as though the unseen O tsu was leading her about
by the nose. And to Numada, who was keeping her company, she
said, 'I'm sorry. This is a waste of your time.'
'I don' t mind. I'd rather be here in Varanas1 than some other
city. How about something to eat?'
'Let's go back to our hotel. I don't want those wedding people get­
ting their claws into me again . ·
Some o f the beggar children were still standing i n front o f the hotel.
One of the wedding guests came out and sca ttered a handful of coins

1 67
over their heads, and they jostled and scrambled about on the ground.
As she watched this, Mitsuko recalled the word harijan - 'children of
God' - and the smooth, ministerial lecture she had heard.
'If we walk through here, we should come out on a large road,'
Numada said, leading the way into an alley that gaped like a cavern.
The alley smelled of animals and urine. Holding her breath, Mitsuko
walked along the back street, which reminded her of the inside of a
mouth, while the sounds of revelry continued to echo from behind.
Something brushed against her leg, and she yelped .
'What is it?'
'I think I stepped on something.'
Numada stooped down and peered at her feet.
'It's a man. Still alive . . . '
'Is he sick?'
'I don't know. He may have collapsed from hunger.'
She heard the sound of Numada dropping coins, just as the man at
the wedding had. The sound of the trickling coins echoed only hope­
lessness and impotence.

. 1 68
 NINE

The River

When they returned to their hotel and went into the sole dining-room,
located at the rear of the building, the juvenile-looking khitmutgar
was sitting half asleep in a chair and Isobe was at a table in the
centre drinking, a bottle of whisky propped in front of him. A lizard
clung motionless to the wall, looking as though it had been glued
there.
'We're back!' Mitsuko called out as she and Numada sat together at
a table with ketchup stains on the cloth. They knew without asking,
just by looking at Isobe's drunken face and sweaty forehead, that he
had spent a futile day.
'How did it go? Did you find your friend?' Isobe was the one to lift
his head and call out.
'No. It was a hopeless quest.'
'Oh? The same for me, I'm afraid .'
'She wasn't there?'
They've moved to the city. The whole family moved, looking for a
place to work.'
'Did you get their address?'
'How could I find that out? It was a destitute village. There were no
villages like that in Japan even in the old days.' The way Isobe spoke,

1 69
it sounded as though he were trying to trounce his own despair. The
pain in the gentle man's heart was evident in his drunken condition.
Numada and Mitsuko silently ate the scrawny chicken the khitmutgar
set before them.
'Miss Naruse. You'll never guess what I did on my way back from
the .village!' As Isobe half filled his glass with whisky, he sounded
almost as though he were trying to pick a quarrel. 'Well, I'll tell you. . . .
I went to see a fortune-teller. An Indian fortune-te,ller.'
'Do you believe in fortune-tellers?'
'Of course not. I don't even believe that business in the letter about
my wife being reborn. But people are funny, you know. Maybe I just
started feeling cantankerous, or maybe I was grasping at straws. I
suppose the taxi-driver I'd hired felt sorry for me, because all of a
sudden he says maybe I should go and consult the famous fortune­
teller here in town. It seems this fortune-teller, seeing as how we're in
India and all, made his fame telling clients who they were in a pre­
vious life, and what they'll be in their next life. What a joke! And the
joke's on me, because I went to see him!' He gulped the amber liquid
down almost desperately. 'This fortune-teller, he was wearing one of
those high-collared outfits - that's right, the kind that Nehru always
wore. He has a face that looks like a university professor, and he's
wearing this ring with a huge stone on his finger . . . and with great
confidence he tells me that she's been reborn and that she's very hapr;
now. Then he pulls some big book out of a teakwood box, writes my
wife's name out in roman letters, makes some sort of calculation, and
then charges me an outrageous amount of money.'
Mitsuko lowered her eyes and wordlessly plied her knife and fork.
Isobe chasing his phantoms was oppressive to her. Numada, who knew
nothing of the background of this conversation, was dumbfounded
by Isobe's behaviour and said nothing.
'Then when I ask him where is she now, he says he'll look into it,
and I'm supposed to come back tomorrow. I suppose he'll give me
some meaningless address and charge me some more money . . . . '
'Are you going back?'
'Oh yes, I'll go back. Pathetic, isn't it? Just so I can gain some sense
of emotional conclusion. Then I'll be able to give the whole thing up.
I think, after coming to India and going through everything I've been
through, my dead wife'll be able to achieve nirvana. Don't you think
she will, Miss Naruse?'
Mitsuko thought of the face of Isobe's wife, who had lain in her

- 1 70
hospital bed without uttering a selfish word. And this man, who had
come to visit her nearly every day as soon as he had finished work.
An ordinary, inconspicuous couple you might find anywhere. Even
couples such as they experienced a drama all their own that no one
else could see.
'I'm sorry. I'm drunk and I'm all confused.' When he came to him­
self, Isobe apologized to his two silent compatriots, but his voice was
close to tears. He clutched the whisky bottle, which was still about a
third full, and stood up. 'To hope for something like rebirth . . . some­
thing that cannot be . . . it was a bad mistake.' With a tearful smile, he
left the dining-room.
'I wonder what happened to him?' Numada asked in amazement.
'I wonder.' Mitsuko feigned ignorance. But then it occurred to her
that she and Isobe were identical in that they were both chasing phan­
toms. 'I'm more worried about Mr Kiguchi. I'm going to give him a
ring.'

The following day was 31 October.

The day of the incident.
That morning, when Mitsuko finished putting on her make-up and
went downstairs, the reception desk was deserted, and the ten or so
employees of the hotel were clustered round the single television set in
the dining-room. Of the Japanese, Numada and Kiguchi, who had
barely recovered from his illness, were staring at the television, not
bothering with breakfast. The face of the prime minister, Indira Gandhi,
dressed in a sari, was frozen on the television screen.
Seeing Mitsuko, Numada announced, 'It's terrible. Indira Gandhi
has been murdered.'
'The prime minister? By whom?'
'They're not sure.'
Mitsuko too stared piercingly at the frozen image of the silver-haired
premier on the screen. Over and over again the announcer repeated
the report from a government spokesman that the premier had been
assassinated just after 9 a.m. at her official residence.
'This is terrible.' Numada sank down into his seat at the dining­
table, and Kiguchi, following suit, heaved a sigh. Numada nodded
his head. 'If we don't watch ourselves as tourists, we may end up
being detained here. Mr Enami and the others are supposed to come
back tomorrow, but I wonder whether the domestic airlines are even
flying. I wouldn't be surprised if they declared martial law.'

171
 'I'm sure Mr Enami will contact us,' Mitsuko mumbled. 'Until then,
we'd better just lay low.'
The Sanjos, who had not shown their faces since the previous day,
came down to the dining-room with radiant smiles. Sanjo already had
his pet camera dangling from his shoulder.
'Good morning! Beautiful weather again today, isn't it? Tell me, has
something happened?'
'The prime minister of India has been assassinated. This morning.'
'Really? Is that why everybody's here together? But it's got nothing
to do with us . . . . '
'Don't be an idiot. If we aren't careful, our return to Japan could be
delayed.' Numada sounded almost angry.
In an instant, the new bride's face twisted up like a child's. 'What
will we do? I told you we should have gone to Europe.'
'But think of all the photographs I've been able to take here.' Sanjo
was earnest in his excuse-making. 'In the final analysis, it's the sub­
ject-matter that makes a photograph. The accolades go to the pho­
tographer who can capture moments no one else can.'
The telephone rang piercingly at the reception desk. As though that
were some signal, the employees who had been glued to the television
suddenly scattered. Someone called from the desk: 'Miss Naruse. Tele­
phone!'
Mitsuko, who had been studying the breakfast menu, stood up at
once, certain that it was a call from Enami. It was, in fact, Enami's
urgent voice that echoed from the receiver.
'Have you heard about the terrible thing that happened this morn­
ing?'
'Yes, we saw it on television. Where are you now?'
'In Patna. Just now things are calm here, but evidently they've called
out the troops in Delhi. It's hard to get reliable information. Now
listen carefully. We'll be back in Varanasl tomorrow without fail. I
want everyone to keep a close eye on developments and act with cau­
tion. The incident this morning seems to be an eruption of dissatisfac­
tion among the Sikhs. Fires may be started in the streets, so please be
careful if you go out.'
'I understand.'
'Is Mr Kiguchi all right?'
'He's having breakfast with us in the dining-room this morning.'
Just as Mitsuko hung up, Isobe finally showed his haggard face in
the dining-room.

- 1 72
 'I'm very sorry for the way I behaved last night.'
'Don't give it a thought.'
When he heard about the assassination, Isobe stared at the televi­
sion as though he had just recovered from a two-day binge.
Eventually the screen began to show tanks and throngs of soldiers
guarding the prime minister's residence, and scenes from New Delhi,
where plumes of smoke rose here and there. Once again the employees
ga thered in the dining-room. The six Japanese were finally able to
discern from the heavily accented English of the announcer that the
premier had been shot by some Sikhs who were part of her security
force as she walked along a path from her residence to the office
where she was to be filmed in an interview.
'What's a Sikh?' Sanjo asked, as he shovelled in the food tha t had
finally been brought to his table. But without Enami, none of the Japa­
nese in the group knew anything about the complex relationship of
antagonism between the Hindus and Sikhs.
'It says in my travel guide that they wear cloths wrapped round
their heads and carry short swords,' Numada responded dolefully.
'At any rate, let's stay here in the hotel until we understand the
situation,' Mitsuko proposed.
'It's really all right. Taxis stop right here by the hotel garden, so it
isn't a problem.' Sanjo picked up his camera and answered resent­
fully. 'This really kills me. If I'd been in Delhi, I might have taken a
picture worthy of the Pulitzer Prize.'
'You just don't grasp it, do you? That may be fine for you, but you
could cause problems for everybody.' Kiguchi took Sanjo to task so
forcefully it was hard to believe he had just recovered from an illness.
The tourists loitered in their rooms or in the dining-hall until the
afternoon. A curfew was imposed in New Delhi, rioting broke out
between the Hindus and the Sikhs, and fires had been started in vari­
ous locations, but here in Varanasl it merely grew hotter and birds
chirped merrily in the garden as though nothing had happened.
Finally Sanjo asked the man at the reception desk, 'Is it all right to
go out?'
'No problem' was the answer.
'I'm going out. You can get wonderful rugs here at cheap prices.
My wife's family asked me to pick one up,' he told Numada, who
was still watching the television. 'I can't waste this whole trip just
because something stupid has happened. My wife's had enough of
visiting old relics, but she says she's all for shopping for silk and rugs.'

1 73
 With the curtains to his room shut to ward off the afternoon sun,
Isobe poured what little whisky was left in the bottle into his glass
and began to drink. He had the feeling he could hear the voice of that
potato vendor calling from somewhere.
Yaki imo-o-o. Yaki imo.
The room, like his heart, was empty. A beam of white light spilled
between a crack in the curtains, and a single cockroach crawled nim-
bly through a rip in the carpet. ,
'It's your fault.' Isobe began making excuses to his wife. 'I looked
for you . . . but you were nowhere to be found.' He thought of the
game of hide-and-seek he had played as a child with his younger
sister. 'I looked for you.'
I'm here.
'My last resort is that phoney fortune-teller.'
Isobe poured the hot liquor down his throat, trying to drown his
wife's voice. The unexpected incident in New Delhi today had roused
him from his act of folly. Otherwise he would at this very moment be
visiting the fortune-teller in the Nehru jacket. The antique fan on the
fortune-teller's ceiling twirled with a rasping noise. With solemn move­
ments he had picked up the large, impressive-looking book and placed
it on his desk. A large-stoned ring decorated his finger. No doubt he
had fleeced some wealthy American or European woman of her money
with that very finger.
'She liked fortune-telling.' He suddenly remembered making the
obligatory New Year's shrine pilgrimages with his wife, and how she
had never neglected to draw a divination slip from the box. She would
smile to herself each time the man at the shrine office studied the
number on her slip and handed her a piece of paper with the words
'Good Fortune' written on it. And now, in a hot, distant land he was
recalling these trivial actions that had meant nothing to him at the
time.
Intoxication looped through his body, and he stared at the white
afternoon sunlight trickling on to the floor. This was the afternoon
light of India.
Mitsuko was sitting qn the orange sofa in her room, staring at the
same white light. A faint hum buzzed constantly in her room, per­
haps because the air-conditioner was so old. Even though she had
travelled all this way to India, the entire day was slipping by without
meaning. Why had she come all the way to India? No, a more import­
ant question was why she had stayed behind in this city instead of

. 1 74
making the circuit of the old ruins and holy places with the other
Japanese tourists. She had virtually no interest in the Taj Mahal or in
the Indian dance shows that delighted other sightseers. It was the
River Ganges and the image of the goddess Chamunda that Enami
had explained to them: the goddess festering with leprosy, encoiled by
poisonous vipers, gaunt, yet nursing children from her drooping breasts
- these were what had pierced Mitsuko's heart. In them she had dis­
covered the Asian mother who groans beneath the weight of the tor­
ments of this life. She was utterly different from the lofty, dignified
Holy Mother of Europe.
The white light filtering through her window unexpectedly reminded
her of the Kultur Heim chapel after classes. That day, she had waited
in the chapel for O tsu with evil intent in her heart. At the bottom of
the stairs, the chimes of the large clock had rung out with solemnity,
and a Bible with a loose cover was spread open before her eyes .

. . . he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him,

there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from
him . . . .
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.

Why am I searching for this man ?

The image of the goddess Chamunda was superimposed upon that
of this man, and the wretched figure of Otsu as she had seen him in
Lyon overlapped them both. As she thought about it now, it seemed
as though she had unconsciously been following in Otsu's wake, chasing
after something she could not define. This fellow they had nicknamed
Pierrot, who had 'no form nor comeliness', whom she had despised
and rejected. Though she had made him a plaything of her pride, he
had deeply wounded that same pride.
With a knock at her door Numada shattered her reverie.
'Everything seems calm in the city. The Sanjos and Mr Isobe have
all gone out. I thought I might go look at the city myself. Would you
like to join me?'

The same as yesterday, the badly oiled fan creaked as it spun near
the ceiling. Leather-bound books were crammed into the bookcase against
the wall to create a sense of majesty, and the fortune-teller in the Nehru

1 75
jacket sat down behind the large desk and declared, 'No problem.'
He wrote something on a piece of paper with a thick silver Parker
fountain-pen, then thrust it towards Isobe with the ringed hand. It
was the address Isobe had requested. As Isobe carefully studied the
man's face, a faintly cunning smile puffed across his cheeks like va­
pour and vanished. In that moment Isobe understood, but resignation
rather than anger swelled in his heart. The fortune-teller quickly an-
nounced: 'One hundred rupees.' ,
When he went outside, an oppressive heat still enfolded the road
even though it was near sundown, and there was no wind. The driver
of the the taxi he had hired to bring him here was patiently waiting
for him in the heat. Here, too, a pair of young siblings hounded Isobe,
their hands extended like those of the fortune-teller to beg for money.
As Isobe watched the younger girl, who appeared to be four or five,
feigning hunger, fear suddenly welled up inside him. What if this
were his wife? The thought that this could be his reincarnated wife
swiped past him, leaving an open wound in his heart like the stab of
a knife. He hurriedly gave the girl some coins and fled into the taxi.
The driver glanced at the piece of paper on which the fortune-teller
had written the address, nodded, and slammed his foot on the accel­
erator. A motor-driven rickshaw noisily whizzed past them, and a
cow had stretched out to sleep in front of a stall selling sugar-cane
juice. As he vacantly watched these scenes whirl by, Isobe felt as
though he were in the midst of a dream. He did not believe he would
find his resurrected wife at the address he had given the driver. But
he bore up against the same kind of futility felt by a terminal cancer
patient who clings to a slender thread of hope even after the doctor
has proclaimed the day of his death. After this, I can give it up, he told
himself. After this, I'll be able to give the whole thing up.
At the small compound lined with rows of dilapidated huts, two or
three rickshaws waited for fares. At a repair shop for bicycles and
rickshaws men were busily assembling some vehicle, while at a road­
side stall a woman crouched on her haunches beside brightly
coloured statues of Siva and fruits arrayed on the ground.
'Here.' The driver stopped his taxi.
'Where? Which house?' lsobe asked, but the driver shook his head
and handed back the piece of paper from the fortune-teller. Only the
name of the road had been written on the coarse paper; the house
number had been omitted. Although he had already resigned himself
to failure, remorse still stirred within him.

- 7 76
 Even so, he got out of the taxi and went into the rickshaw repair
shop.
'Do you know a young girl named Rajini?'
'Rajini?'
'Rajini. A young girl.'
The men peered with ba ffled looks into Isobe's face, then began to
jabber amongst themselves in a Hindi that sounded to Isobe as if they
were spitting on the ground. Then a toothless old man pointed to the
end of the road, and in a nasal voice said: 'Ra-ji-ni.'

A faint breath of coolness finally insinuated its way into the stuffy
heat of sundown. The smells of Varanas1 to which Numada and Mitsuko
had by now grown accustomed - the blended smells of sweat and ani­
mals and the earth - grew even stronger when they entered the dty.
'A bird shop! A bird shop,' Numada muttered to himself.
'What?'
'Would you mind if we stopped off at a bird shop on our way?'
'Of course not. You've given me a good deal of your time. What are
you going to buy at a bird shop?'
'A myna.'
'They sell mynas in Tokyo, don' t they?'
'They've all had their tails cut. I want to get my hands on a myna
from the wild.'
Mitsuko gave Numada a dubious look, but she asked nothing else.
She had her own secrets she wished to reveal to no one. When she had
done volunteer work and one of her patients - usually a middle-aged
or elderly woman - had started to confess some secret to her, the mo­
ment the words first crossed their lips, she would tum away and pre­
tend not to listen. Turning her back on them was a display of rejection,
letting them know there was nothing she could do for them even if
she heard their confessions. She always told them, The head nurse
won't allow it. She's forbidden us volunteers from getting involved in
patients' private affairs.'
Numada seemed displeased that Mitsuko had not asked him his
reason for buying a myna. When Mitsuko pointed to a barracks-like
shop and said, 'I wonder if that's a bird shop?', he headed quickly off
in that direction.
A monkey was tied to a pole. Parakeets squawked in lantern-shaped
cages stacked one atop another, and chickens noisily scratched about
in boxes.

1 77
 Standing in the doorway of the shcp, Numada asked, 'Do you have
any great hill mynas?' Mitsuko, who hadn't known the English word
for myna, realized that this was no sudden impulse of Numada's, but
that he had been planning to get such a bird even before they set out
on this trip. His conversation with the shop-owner continued briefly,
after which Numada gave the man his name and the name of their
hotel and rejoined Mitsuko.
'He says they'll deliver it to the hotel.'
'Are you taking the myna back to Japan?'
'Oh no.' Numada smiled meaningfully. 'Just the opposite . . . . Many
years ago, a myna helped save my life. Now I'm going to pay him
back. A pretty sentimental thing to do, when you think about it. . . .'

From the outside the building looked the same as every other one in
the vicinity. The stucco walls of each house had peeled as though
from some skin disease. One of them was the whorehouse to which
the reception-desk assistant had directed Numada.
'Even if this isn't the place your friend frequents . . . we may be able
to get some clue to his whereabouts.'
'I'm sorry to make you come to a place like this.'
1t's all right. To tell the truth, I've taken quite a fancy to this treasure­
hunt of yours. Why is it you're so determined to track down this
priest?'
Mitsuko answered Numada's intemperate question brusquely. 'The
same reason you were searching for your myna bird.'
'I see.'
He may have spoken the words 'I see' with his lips, but there was
no possibility that Numada could have comprehended the reason for
Mitsuko's curtness.
'What shall we do? Would you like me to go in by myself and ask
for you?'
'No, please take me with you. It'd be even more peculiar for a woman
to be standing by herself in front of a place like this.'
'That's true.'
As the two started UP. the flaking stucco steps, a man who had been
standing in the street watching them began waving his hands and
shouting, 'No lady. No!'
Numada turned back and answered, 'No problem!'
Murky water had puddled here and there on the stairs, and dingy
laundry had been hung to dry in the courtyard, which more closely

1 78
resembled a junkyard. There was a wooden door at the top of the
stairs, with a round peephole that glared back at them like the eye of
a monster. When Numada rang the doorbell, someone peered at them
through the peephole.
'You are welcome,' a voice said, and they heard the sound of a lock
being turned. The face of a man with a fake smile and only two teeth
in the front of his mouth snaked out, but the moment he saw Mitsuko,
he repeated what the man in the street had said: 'Lady, no!'
We're looking for a Japanese man,' Numada explained. 1s he here?'
'No.'
The man started to close the door, but when Numada took a dollar
bill from his pocket, the door remained open a crack. Through the
opening Mitsuko caught a glimpse of lattice bars like animal cages.
From behind the bars women wrapped in raglike saris peered, back at
her, their eyes strangely flashing. They were eyes like a wild eat's.
Among the women was one young woman who might still be called
a girl, stretched out prone on a tattered bed.
When yet another dollar bill crossed the man's palm, a vulgar smile
lit up his face, changing it into the face of a corruptible traitor.
'He hasn't come yet.'
'When will he be here?'
'I don't know.' The man's dull-witted reply erupted from between
his missing teeth.
'Where is he?'
'I don't know.'
'If he comes here, please tell him to call this number.'
When Numada handed him another dollar bill, the man smiled con­
temptuously, but the moment he heard footsteps at the base of the
stairs, he waved his hand as though chasing a dog away, signalling
them to leave. A young man, dressed in the same kind of suit as the
youth who had delivered the splendid speech to Mitsuko at the previ­
ous evening's wedding celebration, stopped in his tracks when he
saw Mitsuko and hesitated as he was about to enter the house.
Following behind Numada and supporting herself with a hand
against the peeling wall, Mitsuko stepped from one puddle of filthy
water to another.
'Now what?'
'I'm giving the whole thing up. I've already caused you enough
trouble, Mr Numada.'
An evening mist had engulfed the city, and Mitsuko suddenly felt

1 79
as though everything in her life had been meaningless and futile. Not
just this trip to India, but everything about her up to the present day:
her years at school, her brief marriage, her hypocritical imitation of
volunteer work. Even walking around this unfamiliar city in search of
O tsu. Yet, at the core of her senseless actions, she vaguely perceived
that she yearned for something. A something that would provide her
with a sure sense of fulfilment. But she could not fathom what that
something might be. ,
Suddenly an explosion of sound, identical to the blaring of the band
they had heard the previous day, echoed from the distance and seemed
to be heading towards them.
'Another wedding?' Numada stopped walking and peered in the
direction of the noise. Drums were banging, and a large number of
people had formed a line and were walking in rhythm to the beat.
'It's a demonstration!'
But the band was playing a sombre funeral march. Phrases in Hindi
and in English had been blackly inscribed on the white banners car­
ried by the men who walked in measured step to the music: WE WILL
NOT FORGET INDIRA. INDIRA IS OUR MOTHER.
Genteel Hindus, like those they had seen at the wedding, marched
solemnly beneath the banners. Behind them followed beggar children
and multitudes of the poor.
'Indira is our mother,' they loudly chanted together. Helmeted
police kept mute watch over the procession.
'Indira is our mother.' Numada read aloud the words from a ban­
ner. 'Our mother is dead. Our mother is dead.'
'Miss Na-ru-se!' Mitsuko's name was called out in Japanese. A familiar
voice. A voice she had heard in college. His peculiar way of saying
'Miss Na-ru-se.' She discovered O tsu, dressed in a dirty, long-sleeved
achkan jacket and a pair of threadbare jeans.
'I heard you . . . were looking for me. Niimaste.'
'Niimaste.' Mitsuko felt the huskiness in her own voice, and forced a
smile. 'I've looked everywhere for you. I even asked at the church.'
'Sorry.' O tsu's quick habit of apologizing had not been cured over
the many long years. Tm no longer at the church. I've been taken in
by one of the Hindu ashrams.'
'Ashram?'
'It's like a seminary.'
'Have you converted to Hinduism?'
'No, I'm . . . I'm just like I've always been. Even what you see here

1 80
now is a Christian priest. But the Hindu sadhus have welcomed me
warmly.'
'Let's go somewhere and talk. Will you come to our hotel?'
'Dressed like this . . . they wouldn't like having me at the hotel.'
'Because of their beautiful gardens, I suppose. But there are benches
in the garden.'
'You're staying at the Hotel de Paris, aren't you?'
'You know a great deal.'
'The outcast who does their laundry is a friend of mine. Their
gardens are famous.'
Mitsuko introduced O tsu to Numada, who was watching all of this
with eyes shot through with curiosity.
Thank you very much. A friend and I will come over to your hotel
right away.'
'INDIRA IS OUR MOTHER. WE WILL NOT FORGET INDIRA.'
The procession marched past the three Japanese, continuing their
Sprechchor. 'OUR MOTHER IS DEAD. OUR MOTHER IS DEAD.'

181
 TEN

The Case of Otsu

With a display o f tact, Numada deposited the two in a taxi and an­
nounced he was going to drop in at the bird shop once more, then
disappeared into the crowd of demonstrators. They were silent inside
the taxi for a few moments, until O tsu said haltingly, 'You've come to
India at a frightening time.'
'Yes, but I don't understand anything that's going on.'
'A number of riots seem to have broken out in New Delhi.'
'It's strangely peaceful here, isn't it?'
'That's because . . . to the Indians this is a holy place.'
'Will Indira's body be floated down the Ganges too?'
'Yes. Just like the impoverished outcasts, she'll be sent down the
River Ganges. They say the funeral will be on the third of November.'

When the long day ended in Varanasl, it suddenly turned cold.

In the garden, various kinds of insects began singing as though
they had been restored to life, and the swing, though no hand had
touched it, creaked and swayed on its own. O tsu sat on the bench,
his legs deferentially pressed together. His diffident posture reminded
Mitsuko of the way he had sat on the campus bench many years
ago, putting up with her taunts.

- 1 82
 'Would you like a sandwich? Something to drink?' She even talked
just as she had in their school-days. 'So you're living with some Hin­
dus, are you?'
'Yes. Here in India, when a Hindu grows old, he turns his house
over to his children and sets out on a wandering journey of spiritual
training. Such people are called sadhus. It was some sadhus who took
me in.'
'Like an abandoned dog, it sounds.'
'Yes, I was just like an abandoned dog by then.' O tsu spoke as
though his nose was clogged up. 'I was really at my wit's end.'
'Moving in with a group of Hindus . . . weren't you condemned by
your church?'
'My whole life I've been reprimanded by the Church.'
After a few moments of silence, Mitsuko said, 'I don't quite follow.
You're still a priest?'
'Yes. But a straggler . . . . '
The assistant from the reception desk, who brought them some sand­
wiches and black tea, directed a look of open contempt at Otsu.
'I'm often mistaken for an outcast. Dressing like this allows me to
carry the bodies. If I dressed as a missionary, they wouldn' t let me
touch the corpses. The Hindus forbid those of other faiths from setting
foot in the cremation grounds.'
1 had heard some people saw you at the cremation grounds,' Mitsuko
said with surprise. 'But you . . . you actually carry bodies?'
'Yes. Here in the city many people who have finally made their
way to the Ganges to die there collapse in the streets. A truck from the
city makes its rounds once a day, but they overlook some.'
'I saw someone like that.'
'Those who are still alive I take to a facility on the banks of the
river. The dead I deliver to the funeral pyres on the ghats.'
Mitsuko recalled the lapping of the flames she had seen two days
before at the Manikarnika Ghat. The mummy-like corpse of an old
woman, wrapped in red and black cloth and placed on a bamboo bed.
If someone had peeled away the wrappings, no doubt what would
have emerged would have been the crumbling form of the goddess
Chamunda. The diverse torments of life and the stains from many
tears lingered on each of those corpses.
'And so you . . . you take them to the Hindu cremation grounds?'
'That's right. The wealthy are taken by their families on a litter.
There are few to carry the poor, solitary outcasts. But even such people

1 83
come dragging their legs to this city with the hope of having their
ashes sca ttered in the River Ganges.'
'But you're no Hindu Brahmin. . . .'
'Is that distinction so important? If that man were here in this city
now . . . '

'That man? Oh, your Onion?'

'Yes. If the Onion came to this city, he of all people would carry the
fallen on his back and take them to the cremation grounds. Just as he
bore the cross on his back while he was alive.'
'But the Onion's church isn't very pleased with what you're doing,
are they?' By reflex Mitsuko hurled the thorned words at her old school­
mate, but even as she spoke them she found her own audacity odious.
'No one has been very pleased with me. At college and at the semi­
nary, at the novitiate . . . and at the church here too. But it doesn't
matter any more.'
'Don't you think that's just your own . . . '
'Yes, I know. But, in the end, I've decided that my Onion doesn't
live only within European Christianity. He can be found in Hinduism
and in Buddhism as well. This is no longer just an idea in my head,
it's a way of life I've chosen for myself.'
Through the open window they could hear a performance of Indian
music that was being presented for a group of American tourists who
had just arrived that day. Snatches of music from a harmonium, an
instrument resembling a harmonica, flowed towards them.
'But you've pulled the rug out from under your own life.'
'I have no regrets.'
'Do the Hindus know that you're a Catholic priest?'
'Those who have fallen by the roadside? I seriously doubt it. But
when all life has been drained from them and their bodies are en­
shrouded in flames, I say a prayer to my Onion. "This person I'm
handing over to you," I pray, "please accept and enfold him in your
arms."'
'In the end aren't you believing in reincarnation the same as the
Buddhists and the Hindus? You're a Christian priest, after all.'
With the little pride she had left in her heart, she was driven to pose
the question by a feeling that she had lost out to O tsu's way of life.
'When the Onion was killed,' O tsu muttered, staring at the ground,
as though speaking only to himself, 'the disciples who remained
finally understood his love and what it meant. Every one of them had
stayed alive by abandoning him and running away. He continued to

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love them even though they had betrayed him. As a result, he was
etched into each of their guilty hearts, and they were never able to
forget him. The disciples set out for distant lands to tell others the
story of his life.' O tsu spoke as though he had opened up a picture­
book and was reading a story to the impoverished children of India.
'After that, he continued to live in the hearts of his disciples. He died,
but he was restored to life in their hearts.'
'I just don't get it.' Mitsuko loudly dissented. 'It all sounds like a
story from some other planet.'
'It's not from another planet. Look at me - he's alive even inside a
man like me.'
It was true that O tsu's words were substantiated by the life of mis­
fortune he had led. His words were different from the fluid, punch­
flavoured rhetoric of the young man at the wedding, whose convictions
had gone no further than his lips.
The lights were turned on in the garden lanterns, illuminating the
profile of O tsu's ulcerated face.
'Every time I look at the River Ganges, I think of my Onion. The
Ganges swallows up the ashes of every person as it flows along, re­
jecting neither the beggar woman who stretches out her fingerless hands
nor the murdered prime minister, Gandhi. The river of love that is my
Onion flows past, accepting all, rejecting neither the ugliest of men
nor the filthiest.'
Mitsuko no longer protested, but she sensed the distance separating
herself from O tsu. O tsu's way of life and the things he said were
quite literally of a 'different planet' from her own. She knew nothing
about his Onion, but it was clear to her that the Onion had irrevoca­
bly snatched O tsu from her grasp.
'Mr O tsu, you've got some sort of eruptions on your face.'
'I know. It's because I spend so much time at the whorehouse.'
'I can't believe . . . you haven't touched any of those women, have
you?'
'Oh, I've touched them, all right. But only after those pathetic women
who have worked themselves to the bone for their men have died, and
I carry their raglike corpses away.'
It was the first time Mitsuko had ever heard O tsu make a joke. It
suggested that a certain span of tranquillity had opened up in his
heart.
When the Indian music show concluded, the laughter and conver­
sation of the Americans buzzed like a swarm of mosquitoes. As if

1 85
that were his signal, O tsu got up from the bench and said, 'Well, I've
got to be going . . . . I have to start early again tomorrow.' He gave a
sad smile. 'I suppose I may never see you again, Miss Naruse.'
'Why do you say such things? Where are you going tomorrow?'
'I don't know. Every day the fallen and the dead can be found
somewhere in this city. One will collapse and die behind someone's
house, or a sick whore will be tossed out on the ground where the
sewer flows. So tomorrow morning when they be� the cremations at
the Ganges, I may well be roaming around near the Manikarnika
Ghat.'

Isobe searched out a bar. He felt, as he had the previous evening,

that he must have a drink. He no longer bore any resentment towards
the fortune-teller with his professorial face. Having come to India and
witnessed the poverty of the people, he had seen that they were not
simply beggars, but that they had learned to earn they daily bread by
turning their physical infirmities and afflicted limbs to their advan­
tage. That fortune-teller was merely one more of their number, a man,
Isobe had learned, who profited from the 'incomprehensible mystery
of India' to make his living. But a feeling of unendurable pain that he
could not put into words surged through his chest.
That unendurable pain drove him in search of liquor. He had roamed
the a lleyways, which were as filthy as he had imagined them to be,
and he had discovered any number of young girls named Rajini. They
had each looked up at Isobe with fear in their eyes, and then held out
their hands to beg for food, chanting, 'Biibiiji, bakshish!'
He wandered, walking on and on with no destination in mind.
Finally in a back street he located a bar that would never have dared
hang its sign on the main road. The shop mainly sold grain and strange­
looking tinned goods covered with dust, but when he asked for a
whisky, the proprietor shook his head and brought out a bottle of
what he said was Indian liquor. He pointed to the bottle and called it
'Chhan. Chhan.'
Isobe brought the bottle to his mouth and swigged on it as he con­
tinued to wander along the street, oblivious to direction. His only wish
was for intoxication speedily to numb his mind and blot out his intol­
erable pain.
Several Indians were arguing in the street. They dragged a healthy­
looking man from his house and began beating him. When the man
called for help, his face covered with blood that gushed from his nose,

- 1 86
a policeman finally came, and the attackers fled like the wind.
One young man who had observed the scene offered an apologetic
explanation to Isobe, though he had not requested it. 'He's one of the
leaders of the Sikhs. Are you aware that some Sikhs assassinated Prime
Minister Gandhi this morning?' He exaggeratedly covered his face
with his hands. 'There is no reason why the Sikhs should kill our
mother. The prime minister appointed one of the Sikhs, Zail Singh, to
be president of India.'
In an attempt to flee this young man's explanation, Isobe pretended
not to understand English. As he began to walk away, the young
man called out to him.
'You had better get back to your hotel quickly. A night-time curfew
has been proclaimed in several cities. If trouble starts up here as it has
in Delhi, foreigners will be in danger.'
By now Isobe had no interest in these religious disputations. As a
Japanese he knew nothing whatever about the background or circum­
stances of the strife between Hindus and Sikhs in this land. The bot­
tom line was that, even in religions, people hated one another, rose up
in opposition and killed one another. He could not place his trust in
such things. To Isobe now, the most valuable thing in all the world
seemed to be merely his memories of his wife. And he realized that he
had come to an understanding of his wife's value, and of what she
had meant to him, only once he had lost her. He had lived firm in the
belief that his work and his accomplishments were everything, but he
had been wrong. He understood how much of an egotist he had been,
and he felt profound guilt towards his wife.
Intoxication circled his body and he lost his way, moving his feet
along merely in an effort to wear himself out. He wanted to tire out
and fall into a drunken stupor. 'Sir!' 'Sir!' Rickshaw-drivers called out
to him from left and right. To his left Isobe noticed a flower shop and
a stall selling copper pots, and he realized that he had walked all the
way to the river.
Several beggars still slept on the stone stairs leading to the ghat.
Seeing Isobe, they called out to him. He flung a handful of coins at
them, scurried up the ghat and hid behind a few pieces of laundry
that had been hung out on the river bank to dry.
The enormous river opened up before his eyes. Moonlight reflected
on the surface of the water like silver foil. There were no bathers to be
seen, and the clamour of the daytime had subsided. Not a single boat
had put out.

1 87
 He sat down on one of the rocks where laundry was pounded and
watched the tin-coloured river as it silently flowed from south to north.
An occasional dark floating object bobbed on the surface of the water.
The river, oblivious to all, departed along with its flotsam.
He hurled the liquor bottle into the river. Countless Hindus believed
that this great river purified them and formed their link to a better life to
come. Had his wife been transported by some means to such a place?
'Darling!' he cried out. 'Where have you gone?' ,
He had never called to his wife with such raw feeling while she
had been alive. Like many men, he had been absorbed in his work,
and had often ignored his household until the time of her death. It
wasn' t that he had not loved her. He had long felt that being alive
meant first of all work, and working diligently, and that women were
happy to have such husbands. Not once had he wondered what depths
of affection for him were buried in his wife's heart. And he had no
notion of how strong were the bonds linking him to her in the midst
of his complacency.
But after hearing the words his wife babbled at the moment of her
death, Isobe came to understand the meaning of irreplaceable bonds
in a human being's life.
Every once in a while the sound of tumult echoed from the city.
Perhaps the Hindus had launched anothf'r attack against the Sikhs.
Each party believed themselves in the right, and hated those different
from themselves.
Revenge and hatred were not limited to the world of politics, but
were the same in the realm of religion. When a group is formed in
this world, oppositions emerge, dissension is created and strategies
are concocted to belittle the opponent. Isobe, who had lived through
the war and post-war periods in Japan, had seen so many people and
groups of that inclination that he was sick of it all. He had heard the
word 'right' so often that he had wearied of it. At some point the
vague feeling that he could never believe in anything had come to
rest permanently at the bottom of his heart. He had ultimately got
along well with everyone in his company, but he had not been able to
believe sincerely in any of them. He had learned through experience
that egoism resided in the hearts of every individual, and that a man's
insistence on his own good intentions and the propriety of his actions
was merely an attempt to gloss over his egoism. He had tried to live
an unassuming life himself, tempered by his understanding of hu­
man nature.

1 88
 But now that he was all alone, he had finally come to understand
that there is a fundamental difference between being alive and truly
living. And though he had associated with many other people during
his life, he had to admit that the only two people he had truly formed
a bond with were his mother and his wife.
'Darling!' Once again he called out towards the river. 'Where have
you gone?'
The river took in his cry and silently flowed away. But he felt a
power of some kind in that silvery silence. Just as the river had em­
braced the deaths of countless people over the centuries and carried
them into the next world, so too it picked up and carried away the cry
of life from this man sitting on a rock on its bank.

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 E L E VE N

Surely He Hath Borne

Our Griefs

In the courtyard, two or three stray dogs rummaged through the garbage.
When O tsu returned, their eyes flashed and they snarled at him, but
they did not attack. Inside the smelly stone house it was pitch-black.
The five sadhus living in this ashram had to rise early, so they had
already gone to sleep. A space in the furthest comer of the main floor
- it could scarcely be called a room - had been given to O tsu as his
spot to sleep. He opened the door that was loose on its hinges and
went in to where it still smelled of sweat and the heat of the day, and
switched on the bare bulb. The light illuminated the indentations in
his dank bed and the several volumes of books that had been flung
on top of them. A prayer-book; the Upanishad; a book by Mother
Teresa. Mosquitoes buzzed. He lit a mosquito-coil he had had sent
from Japan, removed his iichal and the chappals he wore, then dipped
a rag into a bucket of water and meticulously wiped his body.
He knelt and prayed briefly. He then picked up a book of sayings
by Mahatma Gandhi and stretched out on the bed still damp from the
previous night's sweat. As he waited for sleep to come, his eyes scanned
the words he had read so many times before as he had waited for
sleep to come: 'As a Hindu, I believe instinctively that there are vary­
ing degrees of truth in all religions. All religions spring forth from the

1 90
same God. But every religion is imperfect. That is because they have
all been transmitted to us by imperfect human beings.'
A tiny mouse darted like a bullet across the floor. This was nothing
unusual in this building; sometimes large rats leaped over Otsu's bed
as they scurried across the room.
'There are many different religions, but they are merely various
paths leading to the same place. What difference does it make which
of those separate paths we walk, so long as they all arrive at the
identical destination?'
Otsu was fond of these words. Because he had felt like this himself
before he ever encountered these sayings, he had been frowned on by
his superiors at the seminary and the novitiate, and had aroused the
antipathy and scorn of his compatriots in France.
'If that's how you feel, then why do you remain in our community?'
one of his upper classmen at the novitiate had said, denouncing him.
'If you dislike Europe so much, why don't you leave the Church im­
mediately? It is the Christian Church in the Christian world that we
are set to defend.'
'I can't leave the Church,' Otsu said almost tearfully. 'Jesus has me
in his grasp.'
The book of sayings tumbled to the floor from between his grimy
fingers. As he snored, he had a dream. Even in his dreams he saw the
pallid face of Jacques Monge, the brilliant upper classman who had
berated him incessantly in the religious community at Lyon.
'God was fostered in this world of ours. In this Europe you detest
so.'
'I don't believe that. After he was crucified in Jerusalem, he began
to wander through many lands. Even today he roams through various
countries. Through India and Vietnam, through China, Korea,
Taiwan.'
'Enough! If our teachers knew you were such a heretic . . . !'
'Am I . . . am I really a heretic? Was any religion truly heretical to
him? He accepted and loved the Samaritan.'
Only in his dreams could he defy Jacques Monge and his superiors,
plead his case and refute their arguments; in reality his face turned
tearful and he lapsed into silence. He was, in sum, no more than a
loser, a coward. He lacked the power to stand up and fight for what
he believed even in word alone.
Three-thirty. The hour when a subtle coolness finally infiltrates the
dormant heat of the air. In the dark courtyard a stray cow slept. Three

191
sadhus dipped water from the well and purified their bodies.
Four o'clock. Otsu arose, similarly washed his body and face with
the well water, and then in his own room held a private mass. 'lte
Missa est.' He remained on his knees, even after he had muttered the
final prayer. In his days at the novitiate, too, the time he spent in
conversation with his Lord was the only time he could recapture the
peace and tranquillity that lay beyond words. At all other times he
was constantly afraid he might hurt someone el�e, or invoke their
wrath.
Already a faint light had begun to appear outside. When he closed
the door and went out into the courtyard, the scrawny cow woke up,
stared at him with expressionless eyes, stood up and sluggishly hob­
bled away. The streets, which by day would be filled with the voices
of the Muslims chanting from their minarets, with rickshaws, and
with people thronging past like swirling eddies, were still hushed, the
doors of the shops with their peeling paint were still tightly shut, and
the city seemed like a deserted film studio backlot. The only move­
ment came from packs of stray dogs and cows slowly rising to their
feet in the middle of the streets. A feeble coolness still lingered in the
air. O tsu walked the streets that would eventually be awash in daz­
zling light, turning to the right, then cutting to the left along roads
paved with humidity and squalor. He searched after the fallen, hunched
like piles of rags in deserted comers, panting for breath as they awaited
the coming of death. These were they who, though taking human form,
had not spent a moment of their lives able to live like human beings;
they who had made their way to this city, their final hope being to die
at the River Ganges.
Like one who knows where cockroaches lurk, Otsu instinctively knew
where in the city they would fall. It was always along slender by­
ways, guarded from the eyes of men, places where the light of the
outside world seeped wanly through cracks in a wall.
Until they breathe their last, people always seek out such trickles of
light, as though these are their final hope.
Otsu's chappals slapped along the stone pavement soiled with filthy
water and dog droppings, then came to a stop. At his feet, an old
woman leaning against a wall peered up at Otsu. Hers were eyes be­
reft of feeling, like the eyes of the cow that had looked at him and
then sauntered away. Her shoulders heaved as she panted for breath.
Crouching down, 0 tsu took from the bag on his shoulder an alumi­
nium cup and a bottle filled with water.

- 1 92
 'Piini. Piini.' He gently encouraged the woman. 'Ap mere dost hain.'
Water. Water. I am your friend.
He placed the aluminium cup to her tiny mouth and slowly poured
the water in, but it merely moistened her chin and soaked the tattered
clothing that wrapped her body. In a faint voice she muttered: 'Gangii.'
The Ganges.
When she spoke the word Ganga, a look of entreaty flickered in her
eyes, and finally a tear flowed down.
O tsu nodded, and in a loud voice asked, 'Tabiyat khariib hai?' Do
you feel ill? 'Koyi bat nahin.' There is no need to fear.
From his bag he took an Indian-style sling he had woven from
rope, wrapped her frail body in it, and lifted her on to his back.
'Gangii.' With her body resting on his shoulders, the old woman
repeated the word over and over in a weeping voice.
'Piini chahiye?' Do you want to drink of the waters? Otsu responded
as he began to walk.
By now the morning light had begun to trickle into the city, as if to
suggest that God had finally noticed the sufferings of man. Shops
opened their doors, and flocks of cows and sheep, the bells around
their necks tinkling, crossed the streets. Unlike Japan, here no one
gave O tsu a strange look as he passed by with the old woman on his
back.
How many people, how much human agony had he taken on his
shoulders and brought to the River Ganges? O tsu wiped away the
sweat with a soiled cloth and tried to steady his breathing. Having
only a fleeting connection with these people, Otsu could have no idea
what their past lives had been like. All he knew about them was that
each was an outcast in this land, a member of an abandoned caste of
humanity.
He could tell how high the sun had climbed from the intensity of
the light that struck his neck and back.
0 Lord, O tsu offered up a prayer. You carried the cross upon your
back and climbed the hill to Golgotha. I now imitate that act. A single
thread of smoke already was rising from the funeral pyres at the
Manikarnika Ghat. You carried the sorrows of all men on your back and
climbed the hill to Golgotha. I now imitate that act.

1 93
 TWE L V E

Rebirth

Although it was still dark outside the hotel, the voices of early-rising
birds could be heard singing throughout the garden. The commotion
at the reception desk was caused by a group of some thirty American
tourists who had arrived the previous day from Calcutta and were
now assembling in the lobby in preparation for their early morning
sightseeing of the river bathing.
Mitsuko, who would be riding in the same bus as Kiguchi, was
forced into the role of conversation partner for a large, loquacious
American woman with a beaming smile who sat beside her in the
lobby.
'I've been to Japan. It was three years ago, in the summer, and it
was blisteringly hot. We went to the hot springs in Beppu. But the
towels in those Japanese hotels are so small, they hardly covered any­
thing, I'll tell you!'
The woman seemed -to have confused the wash-cloths at the bath
for a bath towel.
Unable to escape conversation, Mitsuko asked, 'When did you ar­
rive in Calcutta?'
'Yesterday. There were just as many people there as in Japan, and it
was just as hot, too!' She smiled artlessly.

0 1 94
 'Was the situation dangerous there?'
'Not really. The strategic points were guarded by soldiers and tanks,
but nothing out of the ordinary happened.'
Then it was likely that Enami and the other Japanese tourists
would return safely to Varanasl this evening. The two days with­
out them had seemed endless.
'Ladies and gentlemen.' In a theatrical voice, the man at the recep­
tion desk called out to the group of tourists, who were chirping as
loudly as the birds in the garden. 'Now we shall start.'
Their bus had arrived . Following behind the Americans, Kiguchi
and Mitsuko found seats. Kiguchi turned round and looked at the
pleasant smiles of the Americans and haltingly muttered, This is un­
believable. Forty years ago, we Japanese and these people were mur­
dering each other . . . . It seems like just yesterday. Of course it was the
British and the Indians I was fighting myself.'
Antagonism and hatred characterized not just the relationship be­
tween one nation and another; they persisted between one religion and
another as well. A difference in religion had yesterday resulted in the
death of the woman who had been prime minister of India. People
were linked together more by enmity than by love. It was not love but
the formation of mutual enemies that made a bonding between hu­
man beings possible. By such means had every nation and every re­
ligion survived over the long span of years. In the midst of all tha t
strife, a pierrot like O tsu had aped the behaviour of his Onion and in
the end been discarded.
'How many times have you been to the Ganges, Miss Naruse?'
Kiguchi asked .
'Twice.'
'Thanks to you, I feel at last that there's been some purpose in my
coming to India. I wanted to have a memorial service performed for
my dead war comrades by the river, or at some Indian temple, but I
didn't know there were so few Buddhists in this country. This is the
land where Sakyamuni was born, but it's turned into a Hindu nation
now.'
'There's still the river.' Mitsuko shifted her eyes towards the gradu­
ally brightening landscape and bared her true feelings. 'It's a deep
river, so deep I feel as though it's not just for the Hindus but for
everyone.'
It was dirty and drowsy along the street, where few stores had yet
opened for business, and though there were no signs of human life,

1 95
cows continued to wander slowly along, without destination.
The bus stopped beside the Dashashvamedha Ghat. Mingling with
the cheerfully laughing Americans, Mitsuko and Kiguchi stepped down
on to the dirty road. A swarm of beggars, poised like waiting flies,
thrust out their hands to the tourists.
Following behind the affable American woman who distributed coins
to the children, Mitsuko climbed the ghat. She was surprised to see
that many more Indian men and women than she, had imagined had
already started bathing.
'Each year, over a million Hindus come to this river to pray.' The
voice of the guide spilled from the circle of American tourists.
'A million!' someone exclaimed in surprise.
'Yes, a million. The Hindus believe that once you enter this river, all
of your past sins are washed away and you can be born into better
circumstances in the next world.'
'Born in this world again? I've had enough of it myself!' A smiling
American woman winked at Mitsuko. 'Are you a Buddhist?'
'Me?' Mitsuko answered . 'I have no religion.'
'You're a member of a wicked, wicked generation. I believe in God
myself.' She seemed to be jesting with Mitsuko. 'You're going to miss
your sightseeing boat.' She pointed to the boats into which her com­
patriots had started piling. The tourists had been divided into groups,
and they were about to observe the funeral pyres from a point near
the cremation grounds in boats paddled by four or five Indian men.
'No, but thank you. We're going to walk.'
'OK!' Once again the American woman winked. 'Let's have a beer
at the hotel tonight.'
At the dock, where the sun had not yet fully risen, the waves beat­
ing against the shore sounded like a dog lapping water. As their boat
slowly pulled away, Kiguchi and Mitsuko set out for the Manikarnika
Ghat, where a vast crowd of men and women were milling about.
Many of the buildings on the ghat were temples or cheap lodgings for
the pilgrims, and the narrow streets were littered with the droppings
of dogs and sheep. Mitsuko, tottering as her feet slipped each time she
took a step, asked, 'Mr.Kiguchi, are you all right?'
'I'm fine. This is easy compared with the roads I once fled along in
the jungle.' Kiguchi repeated the same phrases over and over, as though
they lent meaning to his life. 'Those roads were nothing like this.
Besides the filth, everywhere you looked there were scattered corpses
of decomposing soldiers.'

1 96
 Mitsuko nodded broadly. Within the heart of this man, who looked
for all the world like a middling industrialist, there resided a past that
had compelled him to come to this river. Each of the people who came
to the river had a past like the goddess Chamunda, and each had been
stung by scorpions and bitten by cobras.
They walked past several ghats and, at each, pilgrims who had fin­
ished their ablutions were shaking the water from the saris and loin­
cloths or rags they had wrapped round their bodies to bathe, wiped
themselves dry, and were changing into fresh clothing. Beneath a large
parasol a Brahmin dressed in a yellow robe raised his hand over those
who came to beg a blessing and made a mark on the foreheads of the
faithful. A group of itinerant ascetics had painted their faces white:
these were Hindus who, in the later stages of life, had abandoned
their homes, bid farewell to their family members, and would end
their lives as ascetics, making pilgrimages from one holy place to
another. Mitsuko, who had learned about these pilgrims from Enami,
explained them to Kiguchi.
'Well, then.' Tired, perhaps, Kiguchi sat on the stairs of the ghat
and watched the dark scene before him. 'I suppose this trip to India is
an itinerant pilgrimage for me, too, isn't it? My one hope as I've lived
out my life has been to go one day to Burma or to India in my later
years and hold services for my dead comrades. And, Miss Naruse, it
was just last year that I finally found some time in my busy work
schedule. But after all that, I come to India and contract some ridicu­
lous illness . . .'
'Your illness can serve as one memento of your pilgrimage.'
'Miss Naruse, when I had my fever, I babbled something, didn't I?
The name Gaston.'
'I don't remember. It doesn't concern me.'
'No, Miss Naruse, I didn' t bring it up because I'm embarrassed
about it. Gaston is the name of a foreigner I knew many years ago.
He was a foreigner who took care of my closest friend just before he
died.'
The sky gradually cracked open to reveal a rosy tint. When the sun
appeared, the river suddenly sparkled gold, and cries of joy echoed
from the ghats on either side of them. A row of men wearing only
loin-cloths charged down the stairs and dived into the river, tossing
up a spray of water.
'My war comrade, he ate human flesh in the Burmese jungle. He
did it so he could help save me, since I'd collapsed with malaria . . . .'

1 97
 Abruptly, as though he could no longer suppress the surge of emo­
tion, he asked, 'Miss Naruse, have you ever experienced starvation? I
don't think you can begin to imagine what real starvation is like. In
Burma during the rainy season, we Japanese soldiers had thrown away
our weapons, we had nothing to eat, and all we could do was run
beneath the pounding rain. We were surrounded by a jungle, and
everywhere along the road, from between the ferns and between the
trees, we could hear the weeping and moaning of, sick soldiers who
couldn't move any further. There wasn't anything we could do to help
them. We staggered on ahead, hearing behind us the wailing voices
pleading, "Help me!" "Take me with you!" . . . The most painful to
hear were the young soldiers who yelled out "Mo-o-other!" Maggots
oozed from their wounds. . . . I was saved from all that by my friend.'
Directly beneath the two of them, naked men and women stood in
array, their bodies exposed to the rosy light of the morning sun as
they filled their mouths with the water of the Ganges and joined their
hands together in prayer. Each had their separate lives, the secrets
they could relate to no one else, secrets which they carried as heavy
burdens upon their backs as they lived out their existences. Each had
something that needed cleansing in the River Ganges.
We couldn't help it. The way things were, even if we had to eat the
flesh of the dead . . . '
'Well, to one degree or other, we all live by eating others.'
'No, no, that's not it at all. Miss Naruse, you don't understand. My
friend suffered his entire life because of it. When he carne back from
the war, he . . . he . . . he met the wife and child of the soldier whose
flesh he had consumed. The innocent eyes of the child who knew
nothing of what had happened . . . they pierced his heart and tormented
him for the rest of his life. He endured those eyes all by himself. He
couldn't even tell me, his best friend . . . all he could do was drink. He
tried to forget by drinking. At the very end, he spat out blood over
and over again, and ended up in the hospital, where he met the vol­
unteer Gaston.'
Mitsuko kept her eyes on the Manikarnika Ghat as she listened to
Kiguchi's monologue, directed mostly, it seemed, at himself. There comes
a place and a time when people want to reveal the secrets they have
kept hidden away in their hearts. For Kiguchi, the time was now, and
the place the banks of the River Ganges. At the Manikarnika Ghat,
white smoke trailed over the surface of the river, a white smoke that
consumed those whose lives had ended .

. 1 98
 That Gaston I was babbling about listened to my friend's confes­
sion, and then he said that when a plane crashed in the Andes moun­
tains, the passengers survived by eating human flesh.'
'What?'
'As they waited in the snow-covered mountains to be rescued, they
ran out of food. The critically injured asked the others to eat their flesh
after they had died. Stay alive by eating my flesh, they asked . . . . My
friend wept as he listened to that story. I wonder if he felt some slight
release from his own torment after he had heard it. When he breathed
his last, his face seemed unusually at peace.'
'Why are you telling me this all of a sudden?'
'I'm sorry. I don' t know myself why I'm jabbering on about some­
thing I should never have revealed.'
'Maybe it's because of the Ganges. This river embraces everything
about mankind . . . . Maybe it just makes us feel like talking about
such things.'
Mitsuko had begun to believe earnestly in what she said. There was
no city in Japan even remotely resembling Varanasl. This place was
different from the little she knew about Paris and Lyon as well. A
river where people from afar gathered so they could be cast into it
when they were dead. A city to which people came on a pilgrimage in
order to breathe their last. And the deep river bore up all the dead and
silently carried them away.
With wrinkled hands, as though he were scraping the scales from
his own eyes, Kiguchi rubbed his face, which displayed the splotches
characteristic of old age.
'Miss Naruse, since that experience, I've been thinking about a lot
of different things. I've started reading books on Buddhism, even though
I don't really understand them.'
'Is this Gaston fellow still in Japan?'
'I don' t know. I understand that after my friend died, he stopped
turning up at the hospital. Sometimes I have the feeling he came there
to help my friend, and after my friend died, he left. When my friend
was about to die in his despair, having done a thing no human should
ever do, that fellow came to be with him. He . . . for my friend, at least,
that fellow was another pilgrim who walked with him along the same
paths.'
As she listened, it was Otsu that Mitsuko was thinking of, but Kiguchi
muttered something completely unrela ted to her thoughts.
'What I've been thinking . . . is what in Buddhism is described as

7 99
"Good and evil are as one", that there's nothing a human being does
that can be called absolutely right. To put it the opposite way, the
seeds of salvation are buried in every act of evil. In all things, good
and evil are back to back with each other, and they can't be separated
the way you can cut things apart with a knife. My friend surrendered
to an unbearable hunger and put the flesh of another human being
into his mouth, and that act destroyed him, but Gaston said that you
can find the love of God even in the midst of such an awful hell. I t
may sound self-important o f m e to say this, but ever since m y friend
died, I've kept myself going by mulling over what Gaston said time
and time again.'
Standing just beside the two, a wealthy-looking young girl in a
pretty orange sari stared at them with large black eyes and listened
curiously to their Japanese conversation. On the rose-coloured surface
of the river the heads of the bathers bobbed like the now-extinguished
lanterns cast adrift on the waters to transport the souls of the departed
dead.
'Miss Naruse, I've heard that Indians believe that when they enter
this river, they can come back to a better life in the world to come.'
'The Hindus apparently call the Ganges the river of rebirth.'
'Rebirth? I have to tell you, the night I was delirious with fever, I
had a vivid dream. I can still remember it. In this dream, my war
comrade appeared before me, looking as if he were in great pain, and
Gaston was there holding my suffering comrade in his arms. And I
thought how similar Gaston and my friend were. My friend ate hu­
man flesh in order to save me. And in the dream Gaston said that it
was a frightening thing to eat the flesh of another, but that my friend
would be forgiven because he had done it out of compassion.'
Mitsuko did not respond.
'I wonder if that isn't what rebirth really means.'
This man - the sort of man who could well be the president of a
mid-level industrial firm to be found anywhere in Tokyo - this man
had lived a life that Mitsuko could not begin to imagine. There were
individual dramas of the soul to be found in every one of the people
cupping their hands and praying down by the river. And in the corpses
that were carried to this spot. And the river that engulfed them all, the
river that O tsu had called the river of the love of his Onion. Kiguchi
untied the knot on the fu roshiki parcel he had brought with him and
took out a book of Buddhist sutras.
'Miss Naruse, excuse me, but would you mind if I chanted a sutra

200
for my friend and my other comrades who died in the war?'
'Please, go ahead. I'll walk around for a little while.'
Staring into the river, Kiguchi began to intone a passage from the
Amida Sutra that he had committed to memory.
The river flowed by. The River Ganges moved from north to south,
describing a gentle curve as it went along. Before his eyes Kiguchi
saw the faces of the dead soldiers on the Highway of Death, those
lying prone on the ground, and those with their faces turned to the
sky.

In the land of the Buddha may always be found

Rare and multicoloured birds of all varieties:
White swans, peacocks, parrots, kalavinkas and curlews.
Three times each day and three times each night
These myriad varieties of birds join together in songs
of harmony.

Standing beside Kiguchi as he chanted the Amida Sutra, the young

girl kept her large black eyes fixed on him and did not move a
muscle. Each time he intoned this passage from the Amida Sutra,
Kiguchi thought of the countless birds he had heard singing in the
jungles of Burma.

In that land of the Buddha

A gentle breeze stirs
Through the rows of palm trees and strings of bells
And a sweet, enrapturing sound proceeds from them.

The rains that poured throughout the day would sometimes let up
for a spell, and suddenly in the jungle birds that must have been
hidden away during the downpour began to sing cheerfully here and
there. Although the moans and cries of the wounded soldiers sprawled
upon the ground were audible, the birds seemed to care nothing for
them, and chirped noisily back and forth. Then from somewhere far
in the distant sky came the faint hum of an enemy plane searching
for the whereabouts of the Japanese Army. Those had been cruel days,
when the groans of the soldiers had seemed more filled with pain the
brighter and more cheerfully the birds sang forth . . . .

At places along the route from Varanasl west to Allahabad the paved

20 1
road was cracked, and the already ancient taxi shook violently, while
the driver held on with one hand to his door, which was about to
lose its handle. At each tremour Numada had to grab hold of the
birdcage beside him. The myna bird he had brought back from the
bird shop that morning fretted at each bump.
'It's all right, it's all right,' he repeated over and over, trying to
calm the bird. 'It's all right, it's all right.'
The driver turned round in his seat, flashed a toothless smile, and
mimicked the Japanese: 'It's all right, it's all right.' Then in strikingly
poor English he asked, 'This bird, it's belong to you?'
'Yes.'
'You eat this bird?' He pretended to be eating with one hand.
'No!'
'You are Japanese? Chinese?'
'Japanese.'
'You take this bird to Japan?'
'No, I'm going to set the bird free.'
It seemed, however, that the driver could not understand this last
remark, and after that he clutched his steering-wheel and said
nothing.
When the myna finally settled down, Numada steadied the cage
between his knees and peered inside. The bird was poised with both
feet on its perch, and it cawed in a phlegm-choked voice. It was the
same voice he had heard many years before in the hospital.
There was little difference in size and shape between this bird and
the bird Numada had tended in the past. The way it cocked its head
as the taxi sped along the road was identical, too.
'Do you remember those nights?' Numada asked softly.
Once again the driver turned round. 'You want something?'
'No.'
The driver turned the knob of his radio and what must have been a
popular Indian song, with a woman's high voice and the thumping
of a mridangam drum, came blaring out.
A thick forest walled both sides of the road. Fan-shaped coconut
and banyan trees grew ih profusion, the white limbs of the banyans
so tightly twined and interlocked that they looked like couples mak­
ing love. Numada pressed his face against the window, searching for
a sign that they were approaching the wildlife sanctuary. The areas
around Sarshaka and Bharatpur near Agra were expansive and home
to famous wildlife preserves, but Numada had learned from Enami

202
that there was a small area near Allahabad where hunting was pro­
hibited.
When he opened up his map and began searching it, the driver,
who seemed to have already got directions at the hotel desk, said, 'I
know. I know. No problem!'
The taxi turned on to a dirt road where once again it shimmied
wildly, and inside its cage the myna bird, with fear in its eyes, flapped
its wings. They drove ahead a short distance, and the taxi finally
slowed down.
'Here.'
'Wait for me.' Numada held out his watch and pointed to a time
thirty minutes later.
The makeshift office was deserted. He called out two or three times,
but no one answered. From every direction he heard the same chirp­
ing of birds that one would hear in a zoo after closing-hours. The
forest land had been prepared with unusual care, the trees had been
meticulously thinned, and ponds had been dug in various spots to
provide drinking water for the birds.
He sat down beside one of the ponds and placed the birdcage on
the ground.
'Do you remember those nights?' he asked the myna. As he spoke,
memories of those late nights in the hospital came back to him with a
painful stab to his chest. After nearly two years in the hospital and
two failed surgeries, in his exhaustion the only one to whom he could
open his heart was that myna bird. Late at night, after everyone else
had gone to sleep, he would turn on the small light at his bedtable
and mutter to the bird, as though to himself, a confession of his anxi­
ety and loneliness, not wanting to cause his wife any further concern.
The myna was jet-black, the colour of a woman's wet hair. It planted
its screw-hook claws on its perch, tilted its head and squawked: 'Ha
ha ha!' At times its voice sounded as though it were mocking Numada's
lack of nerve and cowardice, while at other times it seemed to be
offering consolation. 'Am I going to die?' 'Ha ha ha!' 'What should I
do?' 'Ha ha ha!' Then, on a snowy day in February, his third opera­
tion was performed. When haemorrhaging from his fused pleurae
caused the needle on the electrocardiograph to cease its undulations,
the myna bird died, as though in his stead.
He slid out the stick of wood that kept the door to the birdcage shut.
It was a crude cage made of bamboo and wire.
'All right, come on out.'

203
 He tapped the outside of the cage lightly with his fingers. The myna
bird came hopping out, as though in confusion, scurried along the
grass, spread its wings and hesitated for a moment, then raced across
the ground again. Watching its laughable movements from behind,
Numada felt as though a heavy burden he had carried on his back
for many years had been removed. He felt as though he had been
able to make a faint gesture of gratitude towards the myna that had
died for him that snowy day.
The heat fried his face and neck, but when he stepped beneath the
shade of a large betel-nut palm tree, he was able to hear the songs of
the many birds echoing back and forth, from close at hand to far off
in the forest. Assuming various shapes and colours, they nimbly and
cheerily hopped from branch to branch. Where had the myna bird
gone?
He heard the rustle of leaves on a linden tree. The flapping of insect
wings near his ear. Those sounds served to deepen the silence of the
forest. Something quickly swung from one coconut tree to another,
and when he turned his eyes in that direction, he saw a long-tailed
monkey. Numada closed his eyes and inhaled the sultry, unripened
aroma, like the fermented smell of sake brewing, that emerged from
the earth and the trees. The unadorned aroma of life. That life flowed
back and forth between the trees and the chirping of the birds and the
wind that slowly set the leaves fluttering.
He suddenly took note of his own foolishness. The feelings he had
just absorbed were of no marketable value in the world of human
affairs. What foolishness to give himself over to these feelings de­
spite that knowledge. The smell of death was thick in the city of
Varanasl. And in Tokyo as well. And yet the birds blissfully sang
their songs. To escape from that contradiction, he had created a
world of children's fables, and when he returned home, he would
most certainly write stories with birds and animals as their heroes
once again.

204
 T H I R TE E N

He Hath No Form Nor

Comeliness

In endless repetition, the television at the hotel reported on the assas­

sination of the prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
According to the news, the premier had followed her usual custom and
left her official residence at 9:15 a.m., walking the distance of about 1 80
metres to her office. A t the office, the British actor Peter Ustinov was
waiting to interview the prime minister. Just then, Ustinov heard a sound
like the exploding of fireworks outside the window. This was followed
by shouting voices. Assistant police inspector Beant Singh, who was
one of the prime minister's bodyguards, and officer Satwant Singh,
another of her security force, had opened fire on her with automatic
weapons. The stricken prime minister was rushed to a hospital, but she
was already dead. Fifty bullet wounds were found in her body.
A photograph of Ustinov appeared on the screen. His voice was
commenting: 'All the preparations had been completed, and they were
just pouring some tea in my cup when suddenly we heard three shots.
Someone said it must be fireworks.'
The hotel employees and Isobe were staring at the screen in the
dining-room when Sanjo appeared, canying a travel bag.
'Good morning! Are you here by yourself, Mr Isobe? Where's every­
body else?'

205
 Sanjo's voice was shrill. Isobe kept his eyes off Sanjo as he
replied, 'They've gone by bus with an American tour group to see
the river.'
'What, the River Ganges? I wish I'd gone with them. I went danc­
ing with my wife last night at the Hotel Taj Ganges, and I overslept.
That's a wonderful hotel. Why do you think Mr Enami puts us up in
a second-rate dive like this? There are hotels in this city that could
rival the Okura in Tokyo.'
'Where's your wife?'
'Still asleep. I don't know what to do with her. She's such a child,
and she doesn't understand why her husband wants to become a first­
rate photographer.'
'I suppose you've got your camera in that bag?'
'Not a bad guess. It looks like my wife'll sleep till noon, so I'm
going to have a cup of coffee and head for the Ganges this morning.'
'You do remember that Mr Enami said that photographing funeral
pyres along the Ganges is strictly prohibited? Particularly because the
Hindus have worked themselves up into a frenzy over the past two
days. Last night I saw them beat a Sikh man until he was bloody.
Don't you think it'd be better if you left your camera behind today?'
'Robert Capa says a photographer who doesn't risk danger can never
shoot a masterpiece. As the Indians themselves would say: "No prob­
lem." It's fine, don't worry. I won't take any pictures of the cremation
grounds.'
When Sanjo finished slurping his coffee, he ordered a taxi at the
reception desk and then returned to his room. His wife, in a sky­
blue neglige, slept with her arms flung wide, but with her body
curled into a ball like a basket worm. When he touched her white
arm, she languidly opened her eyes a crack. 'Let me sleep.'
'I'm going out. I've got work to do. Otherwise there's no point
in coming here. Would you like me to get you something from
room service?'
'Nothing.'
'Fine, fine, you're going to snooze away when they've just assassinated
the prime minister?'
'It's got nothing to do with us. Let me sleep. Please!'
That was how Sanjo preferred things anyway. In all honesty, SanjO
was at his wit's end with his wife. Her eyes sparkled in high-class
hotels or in stores selling Indian silks or cashmere shawls, but in
New Delhi and here in Varanasl all she had to offer was a volley

206
of complaints: 'It's filthy!' 'I can't stand it!' 'I wanted to drive along
the Marchen autobahn!'
Watching Sanjo scurry into a taxi and head off b y himself, lsobe
suddenly felt uneasy. Every company had to put up with a generation
of workers who were pleasant enough on the surface but never gave a
thought to the trouble they made for others. Isobe knew from experi­
ence that Sanjo was not a bad fellow, but that in his youthfulness he
lacked sensitivity.
The Dashashvamedha Ghat.' With a certain degree of pride, Sanjo
announced his destination to the driver who clutched the steering­
wheel.
'Yes, sir!' The Indian driver instinctively responded with respect to
Sanjo's high-handed tone. Sanjo stroked the camera in his bag. This
solid object. The source of a life worth living. His partner.
When he got out of the taxi, he was surrounded by beggars like a
swarm of locusts. 'No!' Sanjo sounded as though he were scolding a
dog. 'No!' He was no longer plagued by the pity and empathy he had
originally felt towards these fingerless girls and children feigning hunger.
If he gave just one of them a paltry amount of loose change, their
numbers would merely increase.
No doubt as a result of the assassination, two soldiers had been
posted at a four-way crossing lined with stores selling tourist flowers
and bottles to capture the water of the holy river. He might be in­
terrogated if the soldiers could see what he had in his travel bag.
He whistled the 'Starlight Blues' as he made his way along a back
street by the river.Everything's going well, he thought with pride. Every­
thing on schedule, right on schedule. After graduating from the fine arts
department of a private university, he had become assistant to a fa­
mous photographer, and everything was going his way. As his bride
he had chosen a young woman from a family that could guarantee
his future. Once he passed the observatory, he began to encounter
two, then three processions of men walking along, carrying corpses
wrapped in cloths of various colours. These were the bodies of pil­
grims who had died in lodgings along the river bank. His travel guide
had explained that the corpses of women were sheathed in cloths of
red or orange.
He touched his camera through the bag.
He wanted to take a surreptitious picture precisely because it was
forbidden. Even a greenhorn like Sanjo knew that no Japanese photo­
grapher had ever taken a picture of this ceremony. If he were successful,

207
a mainstream photography magazine would be likely to reproduce
his picture with his name attached.
Photographs did not concern themselves with philosophies but
with subject-matter. That is why he had chosen India for his honey­
moon. Even Robert Capa would not have become famous through­
out the world without the dramatic backdrop of the battlefield.
With the corpse suspended over poles about three metres long, several
men heaved i t on their shoulders and passed down a narrow alley.
After he let one group pass by, Sanjo swiftly unzipped his bag and
pulled out his cherished camera. When he brought the camera up to his
face, a man at the back of the litter suddenly turned round, and in clearly
enunciated Japanese shouted, 'Stop it! Photographs are prohibited!'
Sanjo stared vacantly at the man, forgetting even to press the shut­
ter button.
Then he remembered. Several days before, when Enami had brought
them to see the river, they had run into this Japanese man near the
cremation grounds. Enami had tried speaking to him, but the man,
ashamed perhaps by the shoddiness of his attire, had given only a
vague reply and then fled away with the other Indians.
Following behind the corpse and its carriers, Sanjo decided in fact
that it was fortunate he had run into the Japanese man.
'It's going well, it's going well.' In his customary way, he took
everything as working to his advantage. I wonder if I could have a
word with that fellow and have him help me take a picture? I'm sure he
wouldn't refuse if l gave him some money.
As they approached the shmashiian, the characteristic odour of death
filled his nostrils. The deceased's family sat nearby with crossed legs,
waiting for the litter to be placed above the firewood and the flames
to be lit.

Hatred was spreading everywhere, blood was being spilled every­

where, wars were breaking out everywhere. Seated on the steps of the
ghat, Mitsuko spread open the The Times of India and scanned the
pages of the newspaper she had bought along with some postcards at
a relatively tidy shop along the pilgrim's route. She couldn't locate a
single article concerning Japan. It did appear, however, that the prime
minister, Nakasone, would be joining many other heads of state to
attend the funeral for Indira Gandhi in two more days. It was not just
in India that hatred smouldered and blood flowed - Iran and Iraq
were bogged down in war, and fighting continued in Afghanistan. In
such a world, the love of the Onion that Otsu worshipped was impo­
tent and pathetic. Even if that Onion were alive today, Mitsuko thought,
he was of no use in this world of enmity .

. . . he hath no form nor comelintss; and when we shall see him,

there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from
him . . . .
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.

Silly Otsu. Silly Onion. Mitsuko searched for Otsu among the white­
robed silhouettes moving near the cremation grounds. Why did she
care about him, why did she keep searching for him even as she went
on mocking him? There were a number people dressed in white robes.
And there were the several red dogs waiting to consume the flesh that
survived the flames. Vultures also spread their wings near the moun­
tain of firewood, waiting for an opportunity to peck at the flesh left
by the dogs. On the rear of her eyelids Mitsuko sketched a picture of
the goddess Chamunda, who had endured the snapping of cobras and
the stinging of scorpions. When she opened her eyes, she noticed one
skinny cow standing on a stone step nearby, watching the same scene
with moist eyes.

'Mr Kiguchi!'
At first Kiguchi, who was chanting a sutra, did not recognize Mitsuko
dressed in a sari.
'Eh?' He stared at her suspiciously. 'Oh, is that you? I didn't recog- .
nize you in the sari.'
'I bought it on a back street. The shop-owner showed me how to
put it on.'
'What's happened to your other clothes?'
The store is holding on to them for me. They do that for foreigners
who want to go swimming.'
'You're going swimming?'
Kiguchi followed with his eyes as Mitsuko, wrapped in her sari,
slowly descended the stone steps. She brought one foot near the water,
which was the colour of milky tea. The water was lukewarm. A large
Indian man who was soaking in the river waved his hands and ani­
matedly called something to her.

209
 'What did you say?' she asked, and in a loud voice he responded:
'Come in! The river feels wonderful!'
Mitsuko nodded and put one leg into the river, then submerged the
other. Like death itself, she hesitated just before taking the leap, but
once her entire body was submerged, the unpleasant feeling disap­
peared.
To her right two, to her left four Hindu men and women were washing
their faces, pouring water into their mouths and cl� sping their hands
in prayer. No one gave Mitsuko a strange look. On close inspection, it
appeared that the men had naturally gathered in one spot, while the
women had congregated together separately.
Swaying back and forth, Mitsuko approached the sari-clad women.
The women were placing flower petals they had bought at a stall on
top of leaves and setting them afloat in the water. On the stone steps
the yellow-robed Brahmin beneath his large parasol was blessing a
newly-wed couple. Far away on the southern shore, the ashes of the
body that had just been cremated were being shovelled into the river
by three men d ressed in white. Even though the waters bearing the
ashes of the dead came flowing towards the bathers, no one thought it
peculiar or distressing. Life and death coexisted in harmony in this
river.
Yellow and pink flowers that had been blessed also came drifting
by. The flowers collided with an object that looked like a floating
plank of white wood and clustered there. It turned out to be the car­
cass of a dead puppy. Utterly oblivious to it, the people continued to
float and submerge their bodies and pray. Mitsuko sought out the
cremation grounds with her eyes. There, a new corpse wrapped in a
persimmon-coloured cloth had been suspended above the firewood.
The men who had carried the litter left to bring another body. She
could not find 6tsu anywhere.
Mitsuko turned her body in the direction of the river's flow.
This is not a real prayer. I'm just pretending to pray,' she rational­
ized, embarrassed at herself. 'Like my fabrications of love, this is just
a fabricated prayer.'
At the end of her range of vision, the river gently bent, and there
the light sparkled, as though it were eternity itself.
I have learned, though, that there is a river of humanity. Though I still
don't know what lies at the end of that flowing river. But I feel as though
I've started to understand what I was yearning for through all the many
mistakes of my past.

- 2 10
 She clutched her fist tightly and searched for the figure of O tsu
beside the funeral pyres.
What I can believe in now is the sight of all these people, each carrying
his or her own individual burdens, praying at this deep river. At some
point, the words Mitsuko muttered to herself were transmuted into the
words of a prayer. I believe that the river embraces these people and car­
ries them away. A river of humanity. The sorrows of this deep river of
humanity. And I am a part of it.
She did not know to whom she directed this manufactured prayer.
Perhaps it was towards the Onion that O tsu pursued . Or perhaps it
was towards something great and eternal that could not be limited to
the Onion.

At that moment, a cry erupted near the steps descending to the crem­
ation grounds. The Hindus who had been on their knees rose as one
and began to run and shout. They were charging towards an Asian
man, who quickly ran away. It was SanjO. Unquestionably Sanjo. Then,
from among the group of men who had carried the body and were
now resting, one man sprang forward, planted himself in the path of
the mourners, and tried to pacify them. The angry crowd surrounded
this man and began to beat and kick him from every side. While they
were thus diverted, Sanjo slipped away down a labyrinthine road
across from the river bank. The Hindus, stirred up by the assassina­
tion of their prime minister, directed their rage at the man who had
tried to subdue them. Like baggage hurled down from a freight car­
rier, the man tumbled down the stairs of the ghat and finally stopped,
unmoving.
Those who had been bathing gathered about, forming a circle around
the fallen man. In a gap between the wet bodies, Mitsuko saw the
blood-spla ttered body of O tsu.
'Mr O tsu!'
When she screamed, the people in their dripping dhotis and saris
turned round and opened a path for her.
'He's not the one!' Mitsuko crouched beside him. 'He hasn't done
anything!'
O tsu opened his eyes a crack and forced a smile, but his neck was
twisted to the right like the branch of a bonsai tree.
'I think . . . maybe . . . my neck's broken . . .' he gasped hoarsely.
'Damn.'
'Hold Ofl, we'll call an ambulance.'

211
 'I told him he couldn't photograph the dead. I told him . . . as force­
fully as I could.'
'He's one of the Japanese tourists in my group. I'll call the ambu­
lance.'
'My outcast friends . . . will carry me.' His face twitched into a smile.
'I'm still alive, but they'll carry me on a litter used for the dead.'
O tsu seemed to be trying to make a joke to provoke a smile from
Mitsuko. Still on her knees, she used the towel s,h e had brought to
wipe the grimy blood from Otsu's mouth and chin. His bloodied round
face looked just like a pierrot's. As Otsu had supposed, the men who
carried the dead brought along a bamboo litter used for corpses. Seeing
this, the group of onlookers fled. When they lifted him on to the litter,
Otsu gave a cry of pain that sounded like the bleating of a lamb.
'Where will you take him?' Mitsuko asked the men carrying the
litter. They said nothing. Mitsuko persisted, and finally one man said,
To a hospital.'
Which hospital? Please take him to the university hospital here.'
'Goodbye.' From the litter, O tsu seemed to be muttering to himself.
'This . . . this is how it should be. My life . . . this is how it should be.'
'You're a fool. You're really a fool!' Mitsuko shouted as she watched
them carry the litter away. 'Really a fool! You've thrown away your
whole life for some Onion! Just because you've tried to imitate your
Onion doesn't mean that this world full of hatred and egotism is go­
ing to change! You've been chased out of every place you've been,
and now in the end you break your neck and get carried away on a
dead man's litter. When it comes down to it, you've been completely
powerless!'
Crouched to the ground, she pounded her fists futilely on the stone
steps.

Awful crowds of people, awful heat. The shouting voices of taxi­

drivers, scrambling for passengers. Announcements in Indian English,
enunciated as though in anger.
'Please keep an eye on your luggage. In Calcutta if you don't pay
attention, someone will just walk away with it.'
Once he had assembled his Japanese tour group in one location and
given them instructions, Enami went off to search for the airport bus
he had chartered, but he returned without success.
'After all the trouble I went to to make sure it would be here, it
hasn't arrived yet. This is what maddens me about India.'

- 2 12
 'Will we be on time for our flight?'
'That's not a problem. We still have three hours.'
'This is just like a steam-bath. And all this noise - it hurts all the
way down inside my ears.'
'That's Calcutta for you. The city's got a population of nine million,
and it's just a mess of people of every nationality.'
Enami never forgot to provide an explanation worthy of a tour guide.
It was probably a habit with him by now.
'Miss Naruse, I have to apologize to you. You came all the way to
India and didn't get to see a single one of the Buddhist relics.'
'It's all right. Instead of the Buddhist relics, I got to see the river.'
When we get back to Japan, I'll talk to my company and get them
to give you a rebate on your tour costs.'

The television was blaring in the waiting-room, heightening the

confusion. People were eager to see the live broadcast of the funeral of
the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, which was being conducted that
afternoon. The body, decorated with flowers, was placed on a gun­
carriage, which set out for the cremation grounds on the banks of the
Yamuna River. The route of the funeral cortege and every strategic
spot along the way were guarded by throngs of soldiers. From the
crowds lining the streets some waved the national flag. Women wiped
away tears with the sleeves of their saris.
'And she worked so diligently,' Enami muttered as he turned his
face towards the tiny screen.
'Why was she murdered?' Numada asked. 'Was it the religious
animosity of the Sikhs?'
That was the direct cause, yes. But ultimately it was the contradic­
tions inherent in a nation populated by seven hundred million people
with different languages and faiths, and the poverty you have all
witnessed. And the caste system. She tried to bring some kind of har­
mony to it all, but in the end she failed.'
The Japanese nodded their heads as Enami exhaled the words in a
sigh, but no one listened with real interest. Even Numada, who had
asked the question, was thinking of the skies over the forest near
Allahabad, the whispering of the wind, the sparkling leaves, and the
myna bird he had set free. The women on the tour were jabbering
amongst themselves, wondering if the souvenirs they had yet to buy
could be purchased at the airport, while Kiguchi was rewrapping the
tiny Buddhist image he had finally located in Varanasl.

2 73
 'That woman - she's foaming at the mouth.' One of the women
jabbed Kiguchi. An old woman was leaning against a wall, her face
upturned, her shoulders heaving. A yellow foamy liquid spewed from
her mouth. But the Indians walking by her showed no particular sur­
prise and scrambled away.
'She's dying!' the tourist reported to Enami, but after casting a glance
towards the old woman, Enami replied, 'People are collapsing
everywhere you go in India. You saw them in Delhi and in Varanasl.
One or two hundred people die in the streets each day here in Calcutta.'
'But this is the first time I've seen it happen so close at hand.
Can't anyone do something for her?'
'What would you like us to do?' Enami asked angrily. 'This old
woman isn' t the only one dying in this country!'
His voice was so intense that the Japanese tourists, overwhelmed,
shifted their gaze from the old woman and wordlessly turned their
faces towards the distant television. The cremation platform, with bricks
stacked in three levels; the prime minister's corpse decorated with green
eucalyptus leaves, her face covered by a pink scarf. A military band
played a solemn funeral march. The premier's son stepped forward,
preparing to set fire to the wood. The faces of those in attendance
appeared one by one on the screen. The British prime minister, Thatcher,
Imelda Marcos, and the profile of Prime Minister Nakasone. The flames
shot up. Just as the doth-shrouded corpses, and the lives they had led,
had been consumed in the flames of the pyres along the River
Ganges. And yet the survivors in this world would continue to detest
one another and contend with one another. The war between Iran and
Iraq continued unchecked, civil war raged in Lebanon, and in Brighton
terrorists had blown up the hotel where the prime minister was stay­
ing, wounding and killing over thirty.
'It's unbearably hot, isn' t it?' commented Mitsuko, stepping over
beside lsobe. 'You must be worn out.'
'No, not at all. I'm glad I came.' Isobe gave an embarrassed grin.
'At the very least, I'm sure your wife has come back to life inside
your heart,' Mitsuko said by way of consolation.
Isobe blinked and lowered his eyes to the ground. As he stood hunched
over, it looked as though he was bearing the full weight of his mounting
sorrow with his entire body - no, with his entire life.
'What the hell is the bus doing?' Sanjo asked Enami. His exhausted
bride was sitting on their trunk. Sanjo seemed not to give a thought to
the problems his actions had caused.

2 14
 'How many hours are we going to have to wait in this heat?'
'What does it matter? This is a part of India, too,' Kiguchi inter­
jected. 'It'll be one of your memories of the place.'
Sanjo looked disgruntled, but he pulled himself together, brought
his camera up to his eyes and searched for a photographic subject. He
turned the camera towards the old woman leaning against the wall
with yellow foam spurting from her mouth, and the shutter clicked
over and over again. At that very moment, the crowd suddenly opened
a pathway. Two young nuns in grey frocks, a white woman and an
Indian woman, approached the old lady, leading two men who car­
ried a litter. They whispered something in Hindi to the old woman,
then wiped her vacant face with wet gauze.
'Those nuns work with Mother Teresa,' Enami informed the Japa­
nese. 'I think you must have heard of them. These are the nuns who
created the Home for the Dying here. They search out the fallen in
Calcutta and care for them until they die.'
'That's pointless,' Sanjo jeered . That's not going to get rid of the
poor and the beggars throughout India. Seems futile and stupid to
me.'
The word 'stupid' reminded Mitsuko of O tsu's pathetic life. It
was just as Sanjo said: even if O tsu carried dying old men and
women to the free lodging-houses or to the cremation grounds
beside the river, how much good did it really do? But still, these nuns
and Otsu . . .
'I'm a Japanese,' Mitsuko spoke to the Caucasian nun. 'Can I ask
why you're doing this?'
'What?' With a look of surprise, the nun opened her blue eyes wide
and stared at Mitsuko.
'Why are you doing this?'
Her eyes still brimming with surprise, the nun slowly answered.
'Because, except for this . . . there is nothing in this world we can be­
lieve in.'
Mitsuko had a hard time hearing whether the nun had said 'except
for this' or 'except for him'. If she had said 'except for him', she would
be talking about Otsu's Onion. The Onion had died many long years
ago, but he had been reborn in the lives of other people. Even a fter
nearly two thousand years had passed, he had been reborn in these
nuns, and had been reborn in Otsu. And just as O tsu had been taken
off to a hospital on a litter, the nuns likewise disappeared into the
river of people.

2 15
 'Mr Enami!' Mitsuko ran over to Enami and asked, 'Is there any
way you can get in touch with that doctor at the university hospital in
Varanasl?'
'What?' Enami was taken aback. 'Is something wrong?'
'A friend of mine was injured day before yesterday and taken to
the hospital. The Japanese man you met at the cremation grounds. I'd
like to find out how he's doing.'
'Oh, is that all? I can find that out easily. If the bus comes, have
them wait just a minute.'
Enami generously made his way through the crowds of people
towards a pay-phone. He chattered away for three or four minutes,
then hung up the receiver and returned to the group of Japanese tour­
ists, who were tired of waiting for the bus. He gave Mitsuko a sober
look and said, 'He was your friend? That Japanese fellow who was
hurt?' He swallowed and continued, 'He's in a critical condition. About
an hour ago he took a sudden turn for the worse.'

216